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DISCUSSIONS  IN  EDUCATION 


BY 


FRANCIS  A.  WALKER,  PH.D.,  LL.D. 

Laie  President  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology 

Author  of  "  Political  Economy,"  "  The  Wages  Question," 

"Money,"  etc. 


EDITED   BY 


JAMES    PHINNEY  MUNROE 


QOB: 


NEW   YORK 

HENRY   HOLT  AND   COMPANY 

1899 


NUV  19  1900 


Copyright,  1898, 

BT 

HENRY  HOLT  &  CO. 


TEK  VZRSBOV  OOUPAITr  PItXflS, 
RAHVAT,  M.  J. 


W  \  5 

EDITOR'S  PREFACE. 

The  collection  into  a  volume  of  the  following  ad- 
dresses and  papers  relating  to  education  is  in  accordance 
with  the  expressed  intention  of  the  late  President 
"Walker.  That  the  work  should  be  done  by  an  editor 
instead  of  by  the  author  is  but  another  of  the  countless 
losses  suffered  through  his  untimely  death. 

Although,  while  at  Yale  University,  he  had  rendered 
admirable  service  to  the  schools  both  of  the  State  of 
Connecticut  and  of  the  city  of  New  Haven,  the  fact 
that  no  paper  dealing  with  the  subject  appeared  earlier 
than  1884,  when  General  Walker  was  in  middle  life, 
indicates  that  questions  of  education  had  not  engaged  his 
attention,  to  the  point  of  a  formal  discussion  of  them, 
until  after  he  assumed  the  Presidency  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Institute  of  Technology,  in  1881.  Indeed,  so 
much  deeper  had  been  his  study  of  other  social  ques- 
tions, that,  while  exhibiting  the  deepest  interest  in  mat- 
ters relating  to  education,  he  disclaimed  any  special  or 
technical  knowledge  concerning  them.  That,  however, 
he  was  an  educator  in  the  highest  and  best  sense  of  this 
much-abused  term  is  amply  shown  by  his  brilliant  and 
altogether  satisfactory  administration,  during  the  last 
fifteen  years  of  his  life,  of  the  Institute  of  Technology, 
and  by  his  admirable  treatment  of  the  special  topics  in 
education  with  which  this  volume  deals. 

Bred  in  one  of  what  he  himself  calls  the  "  old-fash- 


IV  EDITOR'S  PREFACE. 

ioned  "  college  courses,  a  teacher,  in  youth,  of  Latin 
and  Greek,  he  found  himself,  nevertheless,  in  full  sym- 
pathy with  that  newer  scheme  of  higher  education  in 
which  the  pure  and  applied  sciences  take  an  equal 
position,  as  agents  of  culture,  with  that  accorded  for  so 
many  centuries  to  the  Classics  alone.  An  ardent,  effec- 
tive, and  yet  restrained  champion  of  this  more  modern 
university  training,  he  was,  no  less,  an  advocate  of 
needed  reforms  in  elementary  and  secondary  teaching, 
doing  notable  work,  to  use  Dr.  Harris's  apt  phrase,  in 
the  "  pathology  of  education." 

The  papers,  arranged  in  such  sequence  as  was  pos- 
sible, fall  into  four  main  groups:  Technological  Educa- 
tion; Manual  Education;  the  Teaching  of  Arithmetic; 
and  various  College  Problems.  The  Valedictory  which, 
fortunately  preserved,  closes  the  volume  carries  its  own 
reason  for  insertion. 

With  such  omissions  as  are  indicated  and  with  such 
minor  alterations  as,  it  is  believed,  the  author  would 
himself  have  made,  the  papers  appear  as  originally 
printed  or  delivered.  Parts  of  other  addresses  which, 
because  of  repetition,  could  not  be  presented  in  full  have 
been  inserted  as  footnotes.  It  is  hoped  that,  by  this 
means,  nothing  of  permanent  value  relating  to  educa- 
tion uttered  and  preserved  by  President  Walker  has 
failed  of  inclusion. 

The  thanks  of  the  editor  are  due  to  the  several  pub- 
lishers and  officers  of  associations  for  their  courteous  per- 
mission to  reprint  many  of  the  papers. 
Boston,  September,  1898. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Techkological  Education: 

Immediate  Problems  in  Technological  Education,      .        .  3 
The  Rise  and  Im'portance  of  Applied  Science  in  American 

Education, 19 

The  Technical  School  and  the  University,           ...  39 
The  Relation  of  Professional  and  Technical  to  General 

Education 55 

Technological  and  Technical  Education,     ....  81 

The  Problem  of  "English  "in  Schools  of  Technology,    .  Ill 

Manuai.  Education  : 

Industrial  Education 125 

A  Plea  for  Industrial  Education  in  the  Public  Schools,  153 

Manual  Education  in  Urban  Communities,                   .        .  175 
The  Relation  of   Manual    Training   to    Certain    Mental 

Defects, 197 

The  TEAcniNG  of  Arithmetic  : 

Arithmetic  in  the  Primary  and  Grammar  Schools,      .        .  209 

Arithmetic  in  the  Boston  Schools, 

College  Problems  : 

College  Athletics 259 

The  Study  of  Statistics  in  Colleges  and  Technical  Schools,  289 

Normal  Training  in  Women's  Colleges 305 

The  Secondary  Schools  and  Higher  Education,           .        .  323 

A  Valedictoby, 333 

Index 337 


TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION 


IMMEDIATE  PROBLEMS  IN 

TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION 
1893 


Opening  Address  as  Chairman  of  the  Department 
OP  Technologicai.  Instruction  at  the  Inteknationax. 
Congress  of  Education,  July  26,  1893.  From  the 
Addresses  and  Proceedings  of  the  Intkrnationai. 
Congress  of  Education,  Chicago,  1893. 


The  questions  in  relation  to  technological  edu- 
cation suggested  as  of  pressing  importance  in 
this  address  are,  in  the  main,  dealt  with  at 
greater  length  in  subsequent  papers. 


DISCUSSIONS  IN  EDUCATION 

IMMEDIATE   PKOBLEMS  IN  TECHNOLOGICAL 
EDUCATION. 

This,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  is  the  first  general  confer- 
ence ever  called  to  discuss  the  whole  subject  of  techno- 
logical education.  Delegates  from  the  "  Colleges  of 
Agriculture  and  the  Mechanic  Arts  "  established  in  the 
United  States  under  the  act  of  1862  have  for  some 
years  met  in  annual  convention  to  consider  matters  of 
common  interest;  but  in  these  conventions  agriculture 
has  been  so  far  the  predominant  topic  as  to  throw  other 
departments  of  instruction  into  the  shade. 

It  was  well  that  this  present  conference  should  be 
called.  It  was  high  time  that  the  friends  of  technologi- 
cal education  should  assemble,  to  compare  their  experi- 
ences, to  inquire  what  is  lacking  or  what  has  been  ill 
done  in  the  remarkable  development  that  has  taken  place 
during  the  last  twenty-five  years,  and  to  take  counsel 
together  regarding  the  means  for  completing,  for  per- 
fecting, for  strengthening  this  system  of  public  instruc- 
tion. The  representatives  of  the  classical  culture  long 
ago  recognized  the  importance  of  mutual  conference, 
and  many  and  earnest  have  been  the  deliberations  and 
debates  in  which  delegates  from  colleges  and  universi- 


4  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

ties  have  sought  to  find  out  the  way  by  which  they  might 
do  greater  good  to  the  community  and  to  the  world,  in 
their  devoted  and  self-sacrificing  exertions  on  behalf  of 
education.  Technological  instruction,  from  its  new- 
ness, from  the  sporadic  character  of  the  enterprises  with 
which  it  has  been  connected,  from  the  inherent  gravity 
and  complexity  of  its  problems,  has  even  greater  need 
of  consultation  and  conference  among  its  teachers  and 
its  friends. 

It  is  said  that  nearly  or  quite  one  hundred  institutions, 
in  America  alone,  are  now  offering  instruction  in  the 
applications  of  the  sciences  to  the  useful  arts.  In  Great 
Britain,  if  my  information  is  correct,  the  number  of 
science  schools  and  technical  colleges  is  not  much 
smaller.  With  but  a  few  exceptions,  this  vast  body  of 
educational  agencies  represents  the  developments  of 
only  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Some  of  these  schools  have 
been  founded  under  the  protection  and  patronage  of 
great  universities;  others  have  been  the  outcome  of  inde- 
pendent effort.  Some  have  sought  to  cover  the  whole 
ground  of  technological  instruction;  others  have  con- 
fined themselves  to  comparatively  limited  fields.  Some 
have  from  the  first  achieved  a  decided  success;  others 
are  still  struggling  with  poverty  of  means,  with  embar- 
rassments due  perhaps  to  a  false  start,  or  with  the  inher- 
ent difficulties  of  their  respective  problems.  Surely,  in 
such  a  situation,  it  is  eminently  wise  that  the  represent- 
atives of  technological  education  should  assemble  in  gen- 
eral   convention,    to    deliberate    upon    the    means    of 


PROBLEMS  IN  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION         5 

advancing  their  common  object;  to  inquire  what  re- 
strictions, if  any,  should  be  placed  around  the  field  of 
their  activity;  to  learn,  each  from  others,  what  measures 
may  be  taken  to  promote  the  efficiency  with  which  these 
schools  shall  prepare  their  pupils  for  the  severe  trials  of 
professional  practice;  and,  last  of  all  and  most  of  all,  to 
search  deeply  into  the  question  how  technical  instruc- 
tion and  training  may  be  made  truly  educational,  in  the 
largest  and  best  sense  of  that  word,  so  that  the  schools 
shall  render  the  greatest  possible  service,  not  merely  to 
industry  and  the  arts,  but  also  to  character  and  citizen- 
ship, to  mind  and  manhood. 

So  strongly  has  the  importance  of  this  subject,  in  view 
of  the  recent  very  remarkable  extension  of  the  class  of 
schools  referred  to,  pressed  upon  those  who  have  framed 
the  plans  for  this  general  conference  of  education,  that 
it  has  been  decided  to  allot  three  morning  sessions  to  the 
subject  of  technological  education.  Of  these,  the  first, 
the  present  session,  has  been  assigned  to  the  discussion  of 
the  question:  how  far  the  technological  instruction  of 
to-day  answers  its  primary  requirement,  the  preparation 
of  young  men  to  enter  upon  the  practice  of  the  scientific 
professions;  what  failures  or  deficiencies  have  been  dis- 
covered as  the  result  of  an  experience  wide  if  not  long; 
what  are  the  causes  of  any  failures  or  deficiencies  which 
may  be  found  to  exist;  and  what  measures  should  be 
taken  to  complete  and  perfect  these  schools  upon  their 
purely  professional  side.  The  two  remaining  sessions 
are  to  be  devoted  to  the  consideration  of  the  actual  and 


6  TECnNOLOOICAL  EDUCATION. 

the  possible  work  of  technical  schools  as  instruments  of 
general  education.  For  the  purposes  of  the  proposed 
discussion  regarding  technical  education,  the  present 
occasion  is  most  felicitous,  not  merely  in  the  presence 
of  so  large  a  number  of  distinguished  educators,  at- 
tracted hither  by  the  wonders  and  the  glories  of  the 
Columbian  Exposition;  not  merely  in  the  inspiration 
afforded  by  this  great  object-lesson  of  industrial  art,  the 
greatest  which  has  ever  been  devised  by  the  ingenuity 
of  man^  ordered  and  arranged  by  his  taste  and  skill,  and 
executed  by  his  enterprise  and  energy;  but  also,  and  per- 
haps even  most  of  all,  by  the  presence  here,  in  the  courts 
of  the  department  of  liberal  arts,  of  the  large  and  com- 
prehensive exhibits  made  by  the  technical  schools  of  our 
own  and  foreign  lands.  All  that  may  be  said  here  must 
be  taken  in  connection  with  the  work  of  students,  the 
schemes  of  courses,  the  apparatus  of  instruction,  shown 
in  the  galleries  of  the  main  building  of  the  Exposition. 
Whether  in  their  professional  or  their  educational 
aspects,  these  exhibits  should  be  deeply  and  carefully 
studied  by  every  educator  who  would  form  an  intelli- 
gent and  candid  opinion  as  to  what  the  schools  of  this 
class  are  really  doing. 

In  the  preparation  of  the  programme  for  these  ses- 
sions, it  has  not  been  sought  to  secure  a  series  of  elabo- 
rate and  exhaustive  papers  which  should  occupy  the  time 
available  for  the  consideration  of  the  topics  proposed. 
It  has  been  the  wish  of  the  management  that  the  papers 
read  should  be  comparatively  brief  theses,  presenting 


PROBLEMS  IN  TECHNOLOOICAL  EDUCATION.  7 

the  several  topics  in  a  suggestive  rather  than  in  a  com- 
prehensive manner,  with  a  view  to  invite  oral  discussion 
and  to  promote  the  face-to-face  comparison  of  indi- 
vidual views  and  experiences. 

In  such  a  conference  as  this,  the  most  that  is  to  be  ex- 
pected of  the  presiding  officer  is  to  arrange  and  provide 
from  day  to  day  for  the  presence  and  the  participation 
of  the  largest  number  of  those  whose  positions  and  serv- 
ices in  the  cause  of  education,  technical  or  general, 
qualify  them  to  add  to  the  interest  and  to  the  value  of 
the  discussion.  Yet,  in  this  first  conference  on  the  sub- 
ject of  technological  education,  I  cannot  forbear  to  avail 
myself  of  my  privilege  as  chairman  to  mention  certain 
questions  which  press  for  consideration  in  connection 
with  this  department  of  instruction. 

First:  How  far  those  who  control  and  conduct  schools 
of  technology  are  bound  to  qualify  and  modify  their 
courses  of  instruction  with  reference  to  the  fact  that 
their  students  are,  as  a  rule,  not  the  graduates  of  col- 
leges, and  that  the  training  received  in  these  schools, 
therefore,  must  be  the  only  training,  within  the  college 
grade  both  as  to  age  and  as  to  mental  development, 
which  these  students  are  to  enjoy  before  entering  upon 
the  serious  duties  of  life.  This  fact  was  clearly  not  in 
contemplation  by  those  who  first  founded  our  schools  of 
technology,  if,  indeed,  it  is  not  in  flat  contradiction  of 
what  they  then  anticipated.  It  seems  plain  from  Mr. 
Abbott  Lawrence's  deed  of  gift  to  Harvard  College,  for 
the  endowment  of  the  scientific  school  which  bears  his 


8  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

name,  that  it  was  his  expectation  that  the  students  would 
be  largely  college  graduates;  yet,  in  the  latest  catalogue 
of  that  school  which  I  have  seen,  among  one  hundred 
and  eighty-one  students  only  two  are  graduates  of  col- 
leges, only  one  a  graduate  of  a  classical  college.  At  the 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology  the  number  of 
college  graduates  ranges  between  forty  and  fifty. 
These  students,  therefore,  form  only  between  four  and 
five  per  cent,  of  the  total  membership  of  the  school.  A 
slightly  larger  proportion,  I  believe,  is  maintained  at 
the  Sheffield  School  at  New  Haven.  In  view  of  this 
development  of  schools  of  technology,  we  are  bound  to 
inquire  whether  their  curriculum  should  not  be  more  or 
less  qualified  and  modified  to  meet  the  fact  that  their 
pupils  are  to  receive  no  further  and  no  other  college 
training. 

The  second  question  I  would  venture  to  suggest  is: 
how  far  the  judgment  of  practitioners  of  technical  pro- 
fessions should  conclude  or  should  influence  that  of  the 
teachers  and  administrators  of  technical  schools.  Prob- 
ably the  first  thought  in  any  man's  mind  would  be  to 
the  effect  that  the  best  advice  in  regard  to  technical  edu- 
cation would  come  from  those  engaged  in  the  practice  of 
the  corresponding  scientific  professions.  Yet  it  appears 
to  me  that  this  is  a  subject  which  should  be  carefully 
discussed,  and  that  the  first  thought  on  the  pre- 
sentation of  the  question  is  not  as  a  matter  of  course 
correct. 

Let  us  make  the  issue  a  little  more  specific.     Engi- 


PROBLEMS  IN  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION         9 

neering  education,  for  example — is  it  primarily  and 
principally  an  engineering  or  an  educational  problem? 
Is  the  engineer  who  is  not  and  has  never  been  a  teacher 
necessarily  a  better  judge  than  a  teacher  who  has  never 
been  an  engineer?  Of  course  it  is  not  intended  here  to 
intimate  that  the  opinions  of  practicing  engineers  regard- 
ing engineering  education  may  not  be  of  great  value; 
that,  in  any  case,  they  are  not  evidence  which  should  be 
carefully  considered  by  those  who  are  to  judge  of  any 
question  which  concerns  engineering  education.  But 
who  is  to  be  the  judge — the  engineer  or  the  educator? 
"Whatever  the  professional  standing  of  any  engineer,  are 
his  views  conclusive  upon  the  faculty  of  an  engineering 
school? 

My  own  opinion  is  that  engineering  education  is  pri- 
marily and  principally  an  educational  and  not  an  engi- 
neering problem;  and  that  the  judgment  of  a  strong  and 
experienced  teacher  who  has  studied  this  problem  is 
more  likely  to  be  right  than  that  of  any  engineer  with- 
out experience  as  a  teacher,  however  eminent  he  may  be 
in  his  profession. 

A  third  question  of  importance  in  the  development 
of  technical  education  is  whether  or  not  a  substantial 
connection  with  a  university  constitutes  an  advantage. 
Much  might  be  said  on  both  sides  of  this  question.  Ad- 
mirable examples  are  offered  us  of  technical  schools 
under  the  protection  and  patronage  of  great  universi- 
ties, and  of  detached  technical  schools  which  have 
steadily  and  successfully  pursued  their  way,  alike  with- 


10  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

out  hindrance  and  without  help  from  a  corporation  or 
a  faculty  having  other  interests  as  well  as  their  own  in 
charge.  Without  undertaking  to  discuss  this  question 
in  full,  I  will  venture  to  make  two  remarks  which  it 
seems  to  me  should  be  considered  at  the  very  outset  of 
such  a  discussion. 

'Eo  advantage  which  a  technical  school  can  derive 
from  association  with  a  university,  through  the  ability, 
experience,  and  comprehensive  views  of  the  corporation 
of  such  a  body,  will  compensate  for  any  lack  of  moral 
and  intellectual  sympathy  with  the  purposes  of  technical 
education,  any  lack  of  respect  for  the  studies  and  exer- 
cises of  the  technical  school.  Unless  the  members  of 
the  corporation  of  a  university  thoroughly  believe  in 
technical  education,  unless  they  are  devoted  to  its  ob- 
jects, unless  they  entertain  a  hearty  and  unaffected  re- 
spect for  the  kind  of  man  who  is  to  teach  and  the  kind 
of  man  who  is  to  receive  the  teaching,  a  technical  school 
will  derive  only  damage  from  such  an  association. 
Again,  no  advantage  which  the  students  of  a  technical 
school  might  conceivably  derive  from  the  large  and 
varied  endowment  and  equipment  of  a  great  university, 
and  from  companionship  with  bodies  of  students  in  other 
pursuits  than  their  own,  will  compensate  for  the  loss  of 
scholarly  impulse  and  the  injury  to  self-respect  which 
will  inevitably  be  sustained,  unless  the  general  spirit  of 
the  university  be  high,  manly,  and  devoid  of  snobbish- 
ness. If  the  technical  students,  through  association 
with  a  university,  are  to  come  habitually  in  contact  with 


PROBLEMS  IN  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION.        11 

young  men  who  have  not  seriously  taken  up  the  work  of 
their  lives,  who  regard  college  merely  as  a  place  in  which 
to  have  a  good  time  or  to  indulge  in  sport  or  dissipation, 
who  have  no  settled  purpose  and  no  manly  aims,  and 
especially  if  the  technical  students  are  to  come  habitu- 
ally in  contact  with  young  men  who  regard  labor  as 
degrading,  who  look  upon  the  rough  clothes  and  the 
stained  fingers  of  the  laboratory  and  the  workshop  as 
badges  of  inferiority  in  character  or  in  social  standing, 
then  a  technical  school  will  derive  harm,  and  only  harm, 
from  such  an  association. 

A  fourth  question  which  needs  to  be  very  carefully 
considered  by  all  friends  of  technological  education  is 
how  far  immediate  professional  success  is  to  be  weighed 
against  ultimate  professional  success.  It  is,  of  course, 
an  immense  advantage  to  the  pupils  of  technical  schools, 
and  to  their  parents  and  friends,  that  the  young  gradu- 
ate should  be  able  at  once  to  earn  his  livelihood,  even  if 
it  be  an  humble  one.  In  this  day,  when  social  necessi- 
ties are  so  grinding,  and  when  it  is  so  hard  to  start  a  son 
in  life,  that  advantage  is  not  to  be  despised  or  neglected. 
Yet  there  is  always  a  wide  field  of  choice  open  to  those 
who  control  technical  schools  as  to  the  degree  in  which 
they  will  offer  to  their  pupils  studies  and  exercises  the 
value  of  which  will  be  most  fully  realized  in  the  first 
few  years  after  graduation,  or  studies  and  exercises 
whose  value  will  be  increasingly  felt  through  the  whole 
course  of  their  professional  career,  and  which  will 
qualify  them,  in  larger  and  ever  larger  measure,  for 


13  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

positions  of  responsibility  and  trust  with  advancing 
years.  It  would  be  strange,  indeed,  if  in  the  infancy 
of  technological  education  many  mistakes  had  not  been 
made  in  this  matter,  predominantly  on  the  side  of 
assigning  too  much  value  to  studies  and  exercises  of 
immediate  utility.  I  cannot  but  believe  that  with 
larger  experience,  and  with  more  of  conference  among 
those  who  administer  technological  education,  there  will 
be  a  decided  movement  in  the  direction  of  subordinating 
the  acquisition  of  the  knacks  of  a  trade  and  mere  tech- 
nical devices  to  the  study  of  principles;  and  that,  even 
in  the  applications  of  principles,  valuable  and  invaluable 
as  these  are,  reference  will  be  had  rather  to  their  effect 
in  giving  a  greater  mastery  of  the  principles  themselves, 
than  to  their  immediate  utility  in  professional  practice. 
Nay,  more,  I  confidently  believe  that,  even  in  the  study 
of  scientific  principles,  a  continually  increasing  regard 
will  be  paid  to  their  influence  in  expanding  the  mind, 
enlarging  the  views,  elevating  the  aims,  and  strength- 
ening the  character  of  the  pupil. 

A  fifth  question  presenting  itself  to  those  administer- 
ing technological  education  is  in  regard  to  the  expedi- 
ency of  introducing  some  so-called  liberal  studies  into 
all  technical  courses.  I  have  already  adverted  to  the 
fact  that  the  great  majority  of  students  of  technology 
are  not  graduates  of  colleges.  But  aside  from  this,  and 
even  although  all  such  students  were  college  graduates, 
it  would  still  fairly  be  a  question  whether  some  degree 
of  philosophical  study,  especially  in  history  and  political 


PROBLEMS  IN  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION.        13 

economj,  should  not  mingle  day  bv  day  with  the  scien- 
tific studies  and  exercises  which  form  the  primary  sub- 
jects of  instruction  and  training  in  a  technical  school. 
For  myself,  I  am  much  disposed  to  believe  that  that 
technical  school  will  best  discharge  its  duty  to  its  pupils 
and  to  the  state  which  gives  to  its  students,  in  addition 
to  those  studies  and  exercises  which  will  make  them 
exact  and  strong,  some  measure,  also,  of  those  studies 
and  exercises  which  will  tend  to  make  them,  at  the  same 
time,  broad  and  fine. 

The  last  question  which  I  would  suggest  has  regard  to 
the  desirability  and  feasibility  of  securing  uniform  re- 
quirements for  admission  to  schools  of  technology.  The 
classical  colleges  within  New  England,  and  perhaps  over 
a  wider  region,  have  long  been  working  toward  the  end 
of  common  rules  and  conditions  as  to  entrance;  and 
their  efforts  have  met  with  a  high  degree  of  success,  not 
only  in  a  loyal  support,  by  all  the  colleges,  of  the 
scheme  of  examinations  adopted,  but  also  in  the  mani- 
fest and  marked  improvement  of  the  preparatory  schools 
most  largely  contributing  to  their  membership.  It  is 
fairly  a  question  whether  the  time  has  not  come  for 
associated  action  in  the  same  direction  by  the  schools  of 
technology. 

I  will  protract  these  remarks  only  by  referring  to  a 
single  subject,  and  that  is  the  spirit  in  which  it  behooves 
the  representatives  of  technological  education  to  meet 
and  to  answer  the  accusation  of  certain  critics  that  the 
technical  applications  of  science  are  incompatible  with 


14  TECIINOLOOICAL  EDUCATION. 

that  disinterestedness  which  it  is  said,  and  truly  said,  is 
essential  to  the  highest  results  in  education.  Those 
who  indulge  in  flings  regarding  the  lack  of  disinterested- 
ness in  technological  education  are  generally  the  persons 
who  have  withstood  at  every  step  the  introduction  of 
chemistry,  physics,  and  natural  history  as  substitutes  for 
the  older  studies  of  the  college  curriculum.  Beaten  at 
all  points  in  their  futile  opposition  to  the  spirit  of  the 
times,  and  overwhelmed  by  the  abundant  testimony 
offered  as  to  the  effects  of  science-study  in  making  young 
men  as  modest,  loyal,  fine,  and  pure  as  the  best  products 
of  the  classical  culture,  and  withal  more  exact,  resolute, 
and  strong,  these  gentlemen  are  making  their  last  stand 
against  the  movement  of  the  age  by  denouncing  the 
technical  applications  of  science  as  interested  and  mer- 
cenary, and  therefore  as  unsuited  to  be  the  means  of 
promoting  true  scholarship.  They  are  compelled  to  ad- 
mit that  the  pursuit  of  technology  is  useful  to  the  com- 
munity in  a  degree  which  makes  it  not  less  than,  abso- 
lutely necessary  for  hundreds  and  thousands  of  young 
men  to  be  trained  in  science  and  in  the  applications  of 
science  to  the  useful  arts;  but  they  are  unwilling  that 
these  young  men  should  be  considered  as  scholars  in  the 
same  sense  and  of  the  same  degree  of  merit  as  graduates 
of  schools  whose  studies  and  exercises  are  not  subject  to 
the  imputation  of  being  of  any  direct  or  immediate  use. 
It  would  please  those  gentlemen  more  if,  while  the  col- 
lege graduate  receives  his  scholarship  medal  of  pure 
gold,  the  graduate  of  the  school  of  technology  should 


PROBLEMS  IN  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION.       15 

have  his  testimonial  stamped  upon  a  circlet  of  some  baser 
metal. 

Now,  it  seems  to  me,  we  are  bound  to  resent  and  to 
repel  this  imputation,  without  terms  and  without  cere- 
mony. We  assert  that  the  disinterestedness  of  study 
does  not  depend  upon  the  immediate  usefulness  or  use- 
lessness  of  the  subject-matter,  but  upon  the  spirit  with 
which  the  student  takes  up  and  pursues  his  work.  If 
there  be  zeal  in  investigation,  if  there  be  delight  in  dis- 
covery, if  there  be  fidelity  to  the  truth  as  it  is  discerned, 
nothing  more  can  be  asked  by  the  educator  of  highest 
aims.  A  young  man  who  is  earnestly  laboring  to  pre- 
pare himself  for  an  honorable  and  beneficent  career  in 
life  may  be  disinterested  in  every  sense  in  which  that 
term  can  be  used  with  approbation.  Our  critics  have 
been  driven  to  a  pretty  pass,  indeed,  when  the  only 
ground  upon  which  they  can  make  a  stand  is  the  prac- 
tical usefulness  of  technical  studies.  These  gentlemen 
appear  to  have  the  same  unnecessary  fear  of  fruit  which 
Macaulay,  in  one  of  his  famous  essays,^  attributes,  prob- 
ably with  some  exaggeration,  as  his  custom  was,  to  the 
old  philosophers.  Their  concern  is  needless.  So  long 
as  the  students  of  technology  bear  themselves  with  the 
same  earnestness  and  scholarly  devotion  which  has  char- 
acterized them  as  a  body  since  this  system  of  instruction 
was  inaugurated,  the  cause  of  education  will  suffer  no 
harm.  There  is  a  wonderful  virtue  in  science  to  make 
and  to  keep  its  disciples  truthful  and  faithful;  and  at  no 
'  On  Lord  Bacon. — Ed. 


16  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

distant  time  it  will  be  fully  recognized  by  all  teachers 
that  the  technical  applications  of  science  directly  add  to 
the  value  of  science-study  by  giving  a  more  direct  object 
to  effort,  and  by  heightening  the  pleasure  which  the 
pupil  feels  at  each  step  of  his  scholarly  progress. 


THE  RISE  AND  IMPORTANCE  OF 
APPLIED  SCIENCE  IN  AMERICAN 
EDUCATION 

1891 


Address  at  the  Convocation  of   the  ITniversitt 
OF  THK  State  op  New  York,  Albany,  July  9, 1891. 


Published  in  the  Technology  Quarterly,  Decem- 
ber, 1891,  under  the  title  "The  Place  of  Scien- 
tific and  Technical  Schools  in  American  Edu- 
cation." 


THE  KISE  AND  IMPORTANCE  OF  APPLIED 
SCIENCE   IN   AMERICAN  EDUCATION. 

Among  the  vast  changes  in  the  spirit  and  life  of  our 
country,  in  the  arts,  the  industries,  the  ideas,  the  aspira- 
tions, of  the  American  people,  which  were  brought 
about  by,  or  which  coincided  with,  the  great  struggle 
from  1861  to  1865,  none  is  more  remarkable  than  the 
rapid  development  of  schools  of  applied  science  and 
technology.  It  is  no  part  of  my  duty  to  name  even  the 
most  important  of  these,  or  to  attempt  to  divide  among 
them  the  honor  of  what  they  have,  as  a  whole,  achieved. 
I  shall  confine  myseK  to  accounting,  as  far  as  I  may,  for 
the  rapidity  with  which  these  schools  have  spread  over 
the  land,  and  to  estimating  their  place  in  our  educational 
system. 

The  nearest  and  easiest  thing  to  say  regarding  the 
growth  of  scientific  and  technical  schools,  since  the  for- 
tunate conclusion  of  the  Civil  "War,  is  that  the  industrial 
development  of  the  country  had  reached  the  point  where 
it  had  become  necessary  that  the  enterprises  into  which 
our  labor  and  capital  were  to  be  put  should  be  organized 
and  directed  with  much  more  of  skill  and  scientific 
knowledge  than  had  been  applied  to  our  earlier  efforts 
at  manufactures  and  transportation;  and  so  in  the  full- 
ness of  time,  scientific  and  technical  schools  came.     In 

19 


20  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

this  view  there  is  much  truth.  The  vaster  enterprises  of 
these  later  days,  the  ever  increasing  possibilities  of 
modem  commerce  and  industry,  the  intensifying  se- 
verity of  competition  due  to  quickened  communication, 
fast  mails,  cheap  freights,  and  ocean  cables,  had  indeed 
created  an  urgent  want  for  greater  technical  skill  and 
for  more  highly  trained  intelligence.  The  old  wasteful 
ways  of  dealing  with  materials,  the  rule-of-thumb 
methods  of  construction,  the  haphazard  administration, 
characteristic  of  our  earlier  industrial  efforts,  could  not 
have  been  continued  without  greatly  retarding  the 
national  development  and  without  irreparable  loss  in  the 
result.  But,  at  the  time  spoken  of,  this  want  had  not 
become  one  of  which  our  people  were  generally  con- 
scious; much  less  had  it  created  a  demand  for  such  in- 
stitutions sufficient  of  itself  to  bring  them  into  existence. 
The  establishment  of  scientific  and.  technical  schools  in 
the  United  States  was  to  constitute  a  striking  instance  of 
the  principle  that,  in  some  things,  supply  must  create 
demand. 

[After  development  of  this  principle  upon  lines  simi- 
lar to  those  followed  in  the  address  on  Technological  and 
Technical  Education  (see  p.  96)  the  address  proceeds.] 

But  no  one  who  thoroughly  believes  in  the  mission  of 
schools  of  this  class  can  be  content  merely  to  assert  that 
the  full  time  had  come  in  the  economic  evolution  of  the 
nation  when  such  schools  were  imperatively  needed  for 
the  promotion  of  our  industries,  and  that  the  institutions 
thus  called  into  being  have  done  this,  their  primary 


RISE  AND  IMPORTANCE  OF  APPLIED  SCIENCE.    21 

work,  with  triumphant  success.  We  go  far  beyond  this, 
and  assert  for  these  schools  that  they  have  come  to  form 
a  most  important  part  of  the  proper  educational  system 
of  the  country,  and  that  they  are  to-day  doing  a  work  in 
the  intellectual  development  of  our  people  which  is  not 
surpassed,  if  indeed  it  be  equaled,  by  that  of  the  clas- 
sical colleges.  !N'o  statement  less  broad  and  strong  than 
this  would  begin  to  do  justice  to  the  view  we  take  of 
what  these  schools  are  now  doing,  and  are  in  an  increas- 
ing measure  to  do,  for  the  manhood  and  citizenship  of 
the  country.  We  believe  that  in  the  schools  of  applied 
science  and  technology  as  they  are  carried  on  to-day  in 
the  United  States,  involving  the  thorough  and  most 
scholarly  study  of  principles  directed  immediately  upon 
useful  arts,  and  rising,  in  their  higher  grades,  into  origi- 
nal investigation  and  research,  is  to  be  found  almost  the 
perfection  of  education  for  young  men.  Too  long  have 
we  submitted  to  be  considered  as  furnishing  something 
which  is,  indeed,  more  immediately  and  practically 
useful  than  a  so-called  liberal  education,  but  which  is, 
after  all,  less  noble  and  fine.  Too  long  have  our  schools 
of  applied  science  and  technology  been  popularly  re- 
garded as  affording  an  inferior  substitute  for  classical 
colleges  to  those  who  could  not  afford  to  go  to  college, 
then  take  a  course  in  a  medical  or  law  school,  and  then 
wait  for  professional  practice.  Too  long  have  the  grad- 
uates of  such  schools  been  spoken  of  as  though  they  had 
acquired  the  arts  of  livelihood  at  some  sacrifice  of  men- 
tal development,  intellectual  culture,  and  grace  of  life. 


22  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

For  me,  if  I  did  not  believe  that  the  graduates  of  the 
institution  over  which  I  have  the  honor  to  preside  were 
as  well  educated  men,  in  all  which  the  term  "  educated 
man  "  implies,  as  the  average  graduate  of  the  ordinary 
college,  I  would  not  consent  to  hold  my  position  for  an- 
other day.  It  is  true  that  something  of  form  and  style 
may  be  sacrificed  in  the  earnest,  direct,  and  laborious 
endeavors  of  the  student  of  science;  but  that  all  the 
essentials  of  intellect  and  character  are  one  whit  less 
fully  or  less  happily  achieved  through  such  a  course  of 
study,  let  no  man  connected  with  such  an  institution  for 
a  moment  concede! 

That  mind  and  manhood  alike  are  served  in  a  pre- 
eminent degree  by  the  systematic  study  of  chemistry, 
physics,  and  natural  history,  has  passed  beyond  dispute. 
The  haste  with  which  the  colleges  themselves  are  throw- 
ing over  many  of  their  traditional  subjects  to  make 
room  for  these  comparatively  new  studies,  shows  how 
general  has  become  the  appreciation  of  the  virtue  of 
these,  when  combined  with  laboratory  methods,  as  means 
of  intellectual   and  moral  training. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  characteristic  studies  of  these 
schools  as  the  best  of  all  available  means  of  both  moral 
and  intellectual  training.  I  believe  this  claim  to  be 
none  too  broad. 

First,  the  sincerity  of  purpose  and  the  intellectual 
honesty  which  are  bred  in  the  laboratory  of  chemistry 
and  physics  stand  in  strong  contrast  with  the  dangerous 
tendencies  to  plausibility,  sophistry,  casuistry,  and  self- 


RISE  AND  IMPORTANCE  OF  APPLIED  SCIENCE.       23 

delusion  which  so  insidiously  beset  the  pursuit  of  meta- 
physics, dialectics,  and  rhetoric,  according  to  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  schools.  Much  of  the  training  given  in  col- 
lege in  my  boyhood  was,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say, 
directed  straight  upon  the  arts  which  go  to  make  the 
worse  appear  the  better  reason.  It  was  always  an 
added  feather  in  the  cap  of  the  young  disputant  that  he 
had  won  a  debate  in  a  cause  in  which  he  did  not  believe. 
Surely,  in  these  more  enlightened  days,  it  is  not  needful 
to  say  that  this  is  perilous  practice,  if,  indeed,  it  is  not 
always  and  necessarily  pernicious.  Even  where  the 
element  of  purposed  and  boasted  self-stultification  was 
absent,  there  was  a  dangerous  and  mischievous  exalta- 
tion of  the  form  above  the  substance  of  the  student's 
work,  which  made  it  better  to  be  brilliant  than  to  be 
sound. 

Contrast  with  this  the  moral  and  intellectual  influence 
of  the  studies  and  exercises  we  are  considering.  The 
student  of  chemistry  or  physics  would  scarcely  know 
how  to  defend  a  thesis  which  he  did  not  himself  believe. 
In  that  dangerous  art  he  has  had  no  practice.  The 
only  success  he  has  hoped  for  has  been  to  be  right.  The 
only  failure  he  has  had  to  fear  was  to  be  wrong.  To  be 
brilliant  in  error  only  heightened  the  failure,  making  it 
the  more  conspicuous  and  ludicrous.  How  wholesome 
to  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  pupil  is  such  a  regimen! 

Again,  in  addition  to  the  graces  of  sincerity  and  intel- 
lectual honesty,  which  are  the  proper  traits  of  physical 
and  natural  science,  there  is  great  virtue,  as  training  for 


24  TECHNOLOOICAL  EDUCATION. 

practical  work  in  life,  of  whatever  kind,  in  whatever 
sphere,  in  that  objective  study  of  concrete  things  which 
so  largely  makes  up  the  curriculum  of  the  schools  we 
are  considering. 

Still  another  advantage  which  we  claim  for  the  char- 
acteristic studies  of  the  new  schools  is  that,  in  a  very 
large  degree,  they  dispense  with  the  system  of  examina- 
tions which  has  become  the  curse  of  modem  education. 
The  recent  remarkable  outburst  in  England,  from  edu- 
cators of  every  name  and  class,  against  that  system,  jus- 
tifies the  strong  terms  I  have  used.  It  is  admitted  on 
all  sides  to  be  a  problem  of  the  greatest  difficulty  so  to 
adjust  their  scheme  that  examinations  shall  not  largely 
neutralize  the  good  effects  of  sincere  and  straightforward 
study. 

So  far  has  cramming  been  carried  in  English  univer- 
sities, and  even  in  our  own  colleges,  that  examinations 
have  largely  ceased  to  test  the  scholar's  attainments, 
much  less  his  real  proficiency  in  his  studies.  Students 
who  have  a  marked  facility  in  this  sort  of  thing  acquire, 
in  time,  the  faculty  of  passing  creditable  examinations 
upon  matters  of  which  they  know  almost  absolutely 
nothing.  By  steadily  cramming  for  a  few  days  and 
nights,  under  artful  coaches,  who  know  the  professors' 
weaknesses  and  fads,  a  young  man  exceptionally  expert 
can  "  get  up  "  a  subject,^  of  which  he  would  be  troubled, 

'  I  would  not  disparage  the  importance,  as  a  professional  accom- 
plishment, of  the  ability  to  "  get  up  "  a  subject  in  a  very  short  time 
under  high  pressure.  A  lawyer  has  often  occasion  to  do  this  very 
thing.    But  this  is  a  professional  accomplishment,  and  should  be 


RISE  AND  IMPORTANCE  OF  APPLIED  SCIENCE.        25 

the  morning  after  examination,  to  give  an  intelligible 
account.  There  develops  a  special  organ — the  exami- 
nation organ — which  is  aa  specific  as  the  water-sacks  at- 
tached to  the  stomach  of  a  camel  and  intended  only  to 
<^arry  a  certain  amount  of  refreshment  over  a  very  dry 
place  for  a  very  short  time.  Indeed,  the  comparison 
fails  to  do  justice  to  its  subject.  The  examination  organ 
is  at  once  as  specific  and  as  external  as  the  pouch  of  a 
kangaroo. 

From  this  serious  difficulty  schools  of  applied  science 
and  technology  are,  by  the  very  nature  of  the  case, 
largely  freed.  Indeed,  the  inapplicability  of  the  scheme 
of  examinations  to  the  studies  we  are  considering  has 
even  been  made  an  argument  against  their  introduction 
into  universities.  Professor  Parsons  Cooke,  in  address- 
ing recently  a  body  of  students  at  Harvard,  said: 
"  When  advocating  in  our  mother  university  of  Cam- 
bridge, in  Old  England,  the  claims  of  scientific  culture, 
I  was  pushed  with  an  argument  which  had  very  great 
weight  with  the  eminent  English  scholars  present,  and 
which,  you  will  be  surprised  to  learn,  was  regarded  as 
fatal  to  the  success  of  the  natural  science  triposes  then 
under  debate.  The  argument  was,  that  the  experi- 
mental sciences  could  not  be  made  the  subjects  of  com- 
petitive examinations." 

acquired  as  such.  The  period  of  professional  study  is  not  too  late 
for  the  acquirement  of  this  faculty.  It  can  even  be  acquired  later 
still,  in  the  course  of  professional  work.  Such  practice,  however,  in 
my  judgment,  forms  no  part  of  general  education  and  training,  and 
is  only  vicious  and  mischievous  in  the  culture  stage. 


26  TECUNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

It  is  not  true  that  chemistry  and  physics  cannot  be 
made  the  subject  of  examinations  after  their  kind;  but 
it  is  true  that,  under  competent  teachers  of  these  sciences, 
examinations  have  far  less  of  the  character  of  a  cram, 
and  far  more  of  the  character  of  a  test  of  ability  to  do 
work.  Moreover,  in  such  a  scheme  of  instruction,  as  a 
whole,  examinations  perform  a  much  less  important 
part,  while  the  daily  and  weekly  exercises  in  the  labora- 
tory become  continually  of  more  and  more  account  as  a 
means  of  ascertaining  the  scholar's  real  progress.  In 
this  the  schools  of  applied  science  and  technology  com- 
ply with  the  demands  of  modem  thought  in  pedagogics. 
In  no  department  of  life  more  than  in  education  is  there 
authority  in  the  Scripture  precept,  "  Let  the  dead  bury 
their  dead."  The  best  examination  which  a  student 
can  pass  is  to  show  his  ability  to  do  the  next  thing.  If 
he  can  pass  this  examination  successfully,  the  teacher 
need  give  little  thought  to  what  has  gone  before.  And 
I  venture,  by  the  way,  to  suggest,  with  reference  to  the 
urgent  inquiry  now  proceeding  as  to  where  the  Ameri- 
can youth  loses  two  years  of  time  in  his  preparation  for 
college,  whether  a  large  part,  if  not  the  whole  of  that 
serious  loss,  is  not  sustained  from  the  everlasting  reviews 
and  examinations  through  which  the  American  teacher, 
alike  in  the  primary,  the  grammar,  and  the  high  school, 
insists  upon  dragging  the  pupil  three  times  a  year  or 
oftener;  thus  not  only  requiring  him  to  continually  go 
over  again  ground  already  traversed,  but,  what  is  of 
more  consequence,  creating  a  sentiment  throughout  the 


RISE  AND  IMPORTANCE  OF  APPLIED  SCIENCE.       27 

schoolroom  which  inspires  the  scholars  to  be  forever 
looking  back  instead  of  forward. 

The  last  of  the  advantages  attendant  upon  scientific 
instruction  which  I  shall  enumerate, — though  the  list 
might  be  still  further  extended, — is  found  in  a  better 
relation  between  teacher  and  pupil.  I  would  not  will- 
ingly be  guilty  of  exaggeration  in  this  matter.  With  a 
really  great  and  gifted  teacher,  the  attitude  of  the 
scholar  will  always  be  that  of  respect  and  admiration, 
whether  with  or  without  affection  and  personal  intimacy. 
But  it  cannot  be  denied  that,  in  the  traditional  college, 
with  the  traditional  subjects  of  instruction,  the  relation 
in  question  is  likely  to  be  less  than  a  happy  one.  On 
the  one  side  there  is  apt  to  be  an  undue  assumption  of 
knowledge,  a  tendency  to  dogmatism,  and  a  too  peremp- 
tory way  of  dealing  with  the  pupil's  doubts  and  difficul- 
ties. On  the  other  side  there  is  apt  to  be  something  of 
the  tone  of  resistance,  if  not  of  resentment;  a  disposi- 
tion to  escape  the  teacher's  scrutiny,  if  not  to  get  around 
him  with  the  petty  tricks  of  the  recitation-room. 

It  would  be  foolish  to  assume  that  there  is  any  virtue 
in  the  natural  and  physical  sciences  which  will  overcome 
the  faults  or  deficiencies  of  mind  and  heart  that  are 
found  in  some  teachers.  There  are  men  who  will  be 
priggish,  pompous,  and  pretentious  in  doing  anything. 
But  there  is  a  wonderful  virtue  in  the  studies  we  are 
considering  for  bringing  teacher  and  scholar  together  in 
their  work  in  a  most  simple,  natural,  and  affectionate 
relation.     He  is  the  most  successful  teacher  of  science 


28  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

who  puts  himself  in  the  attitude  of  discovering  truth 
with  his  pupil,  and  of  hunting  with  him  for  the  object 
of  their  common  search.  Moreover,  the  very  closeness 
of  the  contact  in  the  laboratory  of  chemistry,  physics,  or 
mechanics,  is  such  as  to  cause  a  continuous,  insensible 
discharge  of  the  electricity  generated  by  the  necessarily 
strict  requirements  of  study  and  discipline,  and  thus  to 
maintain  the  friendly  relations  of  teacher  and  pupil, 
unbroken  by  those  storms  which  sometimes  gather  and 
burst  in  colleges  where  the  teacher  sits  buttoned  up,  on 
a  platform,  behind  his  desk,  and  lectures  to  his  pupils 
from  the  chair  of  authority. 

But  it  may  be  said:  Considering  all  that  may  be 
claimed  for  the  purely  educational  advantages  of  the 
scientific  studies  which  run  through  the  curriculum  of 
the  technological  schools,  why  may  not  all  these  advan- 
tages be  equally  obtained  by  the  student  of  the  tradi- 
tional college,  and  even  to  better  effect,  since  there  he 
may  secure  the  pure  gold  of  truth  freed  from  the  alloy 
of  baser  metal? — ^by  which  term  the  critic  would  desig- 
nate the  useful,  practical  applications  of  science.  It  is 
here  that  it  behooves  us  to  take  issue,  most  directly  and 
aggressively,  with  those  who  assert  for  the  old-fashioned 
colleges  an  educational  virtue  superior  to  that  of  the 
schools  we  represent.  It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  our 
case  that  the  directness  and  immediateness  of  applica- 
tion to  which  the  studies  of  our  pupils  are  subject,  under 
their  very  eyes  and  at  their  very  hands,  constitute  a  tre- 
mendous educational  force,  securing  a  closeness  and  con- 


BISE  AND  IMPORTANCE  OF  APPLIED  SCIENCE.       29 

tinuity  of  attention  on  the  part  of  the  pupil,  an  earnest- 
ness of  effort,  a  zeal  and  enthusiasm  of  work,  which  it  is 
utterly  beyond  the  power  of  the  teacher  of  classics  or 
philosophy  to  arouse,  except  in  the  case  of  gifted 
students.  If  proof  of  this  upon  a  large  scale  be 
needed,  it  is  enough  to  refer  to  the  well-known  fact 
that  law  schools  and  medical  schools  invariably  com- 
mand the  energies  of  their  pupils  in  a  far  higher 
degree  than  do  the  colleges;  and  that  hosts  of 
young  men  who  have  idled  and  dawdled  away  the 
four  years  nominally  devoted  to  classics  and  philosophy 
throw  themselves  with  splendid  enthusiasm  into  their 
professional  studies  when  once  they,  for  the  first  time, 
see  upon  what  ends  their  efforts  are  directed,  and 
how  their  energy  and  application  are  to  promote  their 
happiness  and  usefulness  in  life. 

Even  in  the  case  of  those  young  men  who  need  no 
such  incentive  to  secure  their  faithful  attention  and  ear- 
nest endeavor,  we  yet  hold  that  schools  of  applied 
science  and  technology  possess  a  distinct  advantage,  in 
that  their  students  learn  the  truths  of  science  in  a  some- 
what different  way,  and,  in  the  result,  know  them  some- 
what better  than  do  those  who  study  these  truths,  no 
matter  how  diligently,  without  immediate,  direct,  and 
constant  reference  to  their  applications.  Without 
dwelling  further  at  this  point  upon  the  limitations  and 
defects  inherent  in  all  academic  systems  of  recitation 
and  examination,  I  believe  it  to  be  true  that  the  man 
who,  in  studying  mathematics,  for  example,  has  only  to 


30  TECHNOLOOIGAL  EDUCATION. 

look  forward  to  a  recitation  to-morrow  and  an  examina- 
tion two  weeks  or  two  months  hence,  applies  himself 
to  the  subject  necessarily  in  a  spirit  different  from 
and  with  a  result  inferior  to  the  spirit  and  achievement 
of  the  man  who,  continually  as  he  acquires  his  mathe- 
matics, puts  it  to  use  day  by  day  in  the  laboratory  of 
physics,  mechanics,  hydraulics,  or  steam  engineering. 

For  these  reasons  we  must  decline  to  accept  the  char- 
acterization of  the  technical  applications  of  science  as  the 
alloy  which  debases  the  pure  gold  of  truth.  We  look 
upon  them,  rather,  as  the  tough,  elastic  bow  which  sends 
the  keen  shaft  to  its  mark.  And,  be  it  remembered, 
zeal  and  enthusiasm  of  work  are  not  to  be  valued  merely 
because,  or  merely  as,  they  secure  directness  of  attention, 
continuity  of  application,  and  sustained  endeavor.  In 
themselves,  of  themselves,  they  are  in  a  high  sense  an 
educational  force,  telling  immediately  and  telling  power- 
fully upon  intellect  and  character,  contributing  impor- 
tantly to  build  up  mental  and  moral  substance  firmly 
and  healthily. 

There  is  one  school  in  the  United  States  devoted 
mainly  to  the  application  of  scientific  principles  to  a  pro- 
fessional art,  which  is  so  well  known  to  all  our  people, 
and  whose  work  in  the  development  of  mind  and  man- 
hood has  been  so  severely  tested  in  the  sight  of  the  coun- 
try and  of  the  whole  world,  that  I  cannot  forbear  to 
allude  to  it  here.  I  mean  the  Military  Academy  at 
West  Point.  There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that,  for  the 
thirty  years  preceding  the  Civil  War,  the  young  men 


BISE  AND  IMPORTANCE  OF  APPLIED  SCIENCE.       31 

who  went  to  that  school  were  in  anj  degree  superior  to 
those  who  entered  Yale  or  Harvard.  Indeed,  there  was 
at  that  time,  at  least  throughout  the  JSTorth,  a  certain 
disinclination  on  the  part  of  the  more  generous  and  am- 
bitious of  our  youth  to  adopt  the  career  of  arms.  Yet 
when  the  war  broke  out,  what  a  wealth  of  intellect  and 
character  was  displayed  by  the  graduates  of  that  one 
small  school  during  the  terrific  trial  to  which  they  were 
instantly  and  without  preparation  subjected!  Think 
how  many  men  from  that  single  academy,  which  had 
fewer  living  graduates  than  either  Amherst  or  Williams, 
led  army  corps  and  armies  with  distinction,  on  the  one 
side  or  the  other,  in  what  was  perhaps  the  greatest  war 
of  modem  history !  I  said  "  of  intellect  and  character," 
for  it  is  character,  even  more  than  intellect,  which  en- 
ables the  commander  to  bear  the  tremendous  cares,  re- 
sponsibilities, and  burdens  of  his  oflBce.  What  power 
developed,  out  of  those  few  small  classes  of  raw  lads,  a 
Grant,  a  Lee,  a  Sherman,  a  Meade,  a  Jackson,  a  Thomas, 
the  two  Johnstons,  a  Hancock,  a  Reno,  a  Reynolds,  and 
a  Sheridan,  not  to  mention  scores  of  others  who  "  waxed 
valiant  in  fight "  and  commanded  divisions  and  corps 
with  a  skill  and  address  which  have  excited  the  admira- 
tion of  the  professional  soldiers  of  Europe?  ^     Doubtless 

'  Those  four  years  of  tremendous  conflict  had  wrought  the  nation 
up  to  the  appreciation  of  a  greatness  which  does  not  manifest  itself 
in  fine  phrases  and  moving  utterance.  If  the  war  had  done  nothing 
else  for  our  people,  it  would  have  done  much  simply  in  teaching 
them  that  deeds  are  greater  than  words.  The  American  people, 
through  those  long  days  of  anguish  and  suspense,  learned  how 
much  higher  and  nobler  is  the  power  that  can  do  and  dare  and 


82  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

in  some  part  it  was  the  romance  and  the  highly  stimulat- 
ing influences  of  the  military  career.  Doubtless  in  pqrt 
also  it  was  the  special  inspiration  of  the  tremendous 
occasion,  fraught  as  that  was  with  the  destinies  of  a  con- 
tinent. But  I  believe  it,  in  still  greater  part,  to  have 
been  the  perfectly  natural  effect  of  the  application  of 
perhaps  not  extraordinary  powers  to  the  thorough,  pa- 
tient, unremitting  study  of  scientific  principles,  directed 
straight  upon  a  worthy  profession,  under  the  tuition 
and  guidance  of  renowned  masters  of  that  art,  and  under 
the  constant  influence  of  professional  ideas,  professional 
sentiments,  and  great  professional  examples. 

Much  more  might  be  said  in  comparison  of  the  in- 
fluence of  scientific  teaching  as  carried  on  in  the  schools 
of  applied  science  and  technology,  with  the  influence  of 
the  traditional  or  of  the  more  modern,  revised  curricu- 
lum of  the  classical  colleges;  but  perhaps  enough  has 
been  said  to  justify  the  assertion  that  the  former  class  of 
institutions  is  just  as  truly  educational  as  the  latter. 
Here  I  am  content  to  rest  my  case.  This  conceded,  let 
the  youth  of  the  land  seek  the  one  or  the  other  kind  of 
school,  according  to  their  individual  tastes,  predilections, 
and  plans  for  life.  I  am  far  from  being  so  bigoted  as  to 
suggest  that  there  is  not  room  enough  in  the  educational 
system  of  the  future  for  all  the  institutions  of  the  elder 

«ndure,  than  the  arts  of  dainty  expression,  or  vehement  declama- 
tion, or  cunning  dialectic  in  which  they  had  formerly  so  much 
delighted,  too  often  to  the  point  of  subordinating  statesmanship  to 
oratory. — Prom  address  delivered  at  the  opening  of  the  Engirieering 
Building,  Pennsylvania  State  College,  February  22,  1893. 


RISE  AND  IMPORTANCE  OF  APPLIED  SCIENCE.       33 

type  which  have  achieved  for  themselves  a  name  in  let- 
ters and  philosophy;  which  have,  with  pains  inexpressi- 
ble, wrought  out  their  own  problems  and  created  their 
own  constituencies;  and  each  of  which  has  a  host  of 
eager,  devoted  alumni,  ever  turning  gratefully  to  the 
halls  in  which  they  were  nurtured.  But  I  confidently 
look  to  see  a  largely  disproportionate  number  of  the  new 
institutions  which  shall  from  time  to  time  come  into 
being,  built  essentially  upon  the  plan  which  has  achieved 
such  prodigious  successes  during  the  quarter-century 
now  closing.  Doubtless  the  present  general  scheme  of 
the  schools  of  technology  will  itself  undergo  consider- 
able modification,  alike  from  the  results  of  added  ex- 
perience, from  larger  means,  and  from  the  infusion  of 
a  wiser  and  more  generous  spirit.  Doubtless  more  of 
economic,  historical,  and  philosophical  studies  will  be 
introduced  to  supplement,  by  their  liberalizing  tenden- 
cies, the  work  of  the  sciences  in  making  their  pupils 
exact  and  strong.  Possibly  some  ultimate  form  for  in- 
stitutions of  the  higher  learning  may  yet  be  developed, 
which  shall  embody  much  of  both  the  modem  school  of 
technology  and  of  the  old-fashioned  college,  with,  per- 
haps, something  taken  from  neither,  but  originating  in 
the  larger,  fuller,  riper  life  of  a  happier  and  richer 
future.^ 

'  In  addition  to  all  the  professional  uses  which  he  may  make  of 
scientific  principles  or  technical  arts,  the  student  thoroughly  trained 
in  exact  science  has  acquired  (first  and  foremost)  intellectual  honesty, 
— that  is,  complete  satisfaction  in  resting  upon  the  truth,  whatever 
that  may  prove  to  be;  then,  the  power  of  discrimination  in  all  things 


84  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

concrete  and  objective:  next,  the  ability  to  concentrate  attention,  and 
to  pursue  investigation  unfalteringly  and  relentlessly  to  exact  results; 
finally,  the  mastery,  in  a  high  degree,  of  his  own  powers  and 
faculties. 

The  things  which  scientific  study  and  technical  practice  do  not 
directly  tend  to  give,  but  which  philosophical  studies  do  in  a  meas- 
ure contribute,  are,  first,  what  I  may  call  "  horizon" — the  outlook  over 
affairs;  secondly,  toleration  of  and  patience  with  what  is  poor  in 
kind  and  incomplete  in  form,  like  much  of  what  one  has  to  do  with 
in  real  life;  thirdly,  knowledge  of  men,  and  address  and  tact  in  deal- 
ing with  them;  fourthly,  appreciation  of  economic  conditions,  espe- 
cially in  the  matter  of  knowing  where  to  stop  in  the  perfecting  of 
products,  as  at  the  point  where  it  will  "pay"  best. — that  is,  where 
the  return  will  most  liberally  compensate  expenditure,  in  contrast 
■with  the  scientific  instinct  to  make  everything  perfect,  no  matter 
■what  it  costs. 

Now,  if  it  ■were  wholly  a  question  between  those  two  classes  of  ad- 
vantages, so  strongly  contrasted  with  each  other, — that  is,  if  a  man 
could  not  have  both,  in  some  degree,  but  must  "  cleave  to  the  one 
and  despise  the  other,"  I  should  unhesitatingly  say,  give  to  me  and 
mine  the  advantages  which  especially  attach  to  education  and  train- 
ing in  the  exact  sciences,  even  if  we  must  forego  those  naturally  to 
be  looked  for  from  philosophical  studies.  Not  only  are  the  former, 
on  the  whole,  more  valuable  to  individuals  and  to  society,  but  they 
are  doubly  important  in  view  of  the  consideration  that  one  ■who  has 
acquired  the  scientific  spirit  and  the  scientific  method,  ■who  has  be- 
come exact  and  strong,  may  be  broadened  and  softened  by  contact 
with  men  and  experience  of  life.  But  one  is  very  unlikely  to  ac- 
quire the  spirit  and  methods  of  science  later  in  life  if  he  has  not 
done  so  in  school;  is  very  unlikely  indeed  to  take  up  and  master 
mathematics,  mechanics,  and  physics,  when  engaged  in  active 
duties. 

But  it  is  not  a  question  of  taking  the  advantages  which  belong  to 
one  kind  of  education,  and  giving  up  those  which  belong  to  the 
other.  There  is  no  incompatibility  between  the  two  sets  of  qualities 
especially  developed  by  the  two  sorts  of  training.  A  man  may  be 
liberal  and  broad  in  spirit,  and  yet  exact  and  strong  in  his  thinking. 
He  may  have  the  keenest  possible  sense  of  what  is  incomplete  in 
form,  yet  be  tolerant  in  dealing  with  the  unavQidable  imperfections 
of  his  material,  or  of  his  human  agents  or  assistants.  He  may  hold 
in  view  the  perfect  instrument,  the  perfect  end,  not  less  strongly 
because  his  economic  sense  instructs  him  that  it  is  necessary  to  stop 
short  at  a  certain  point,  in  order  to  secure  a  return  for  labor  and 
capital  to  be  invested. 


RISE  AND  IMPORTANCE  OF  APPLIED  SCIENCE.       35 

Not  only  is  there  no  incompatibility  between  these  different  sets 
of  qualities — each  actually  contributes  to  the  other.  Since,  thus,  a 
man  may  aspire  to  have  both  in  fair  measure,  each  in  greater  perfec- 
tion and  higher  degree  because  of  the  other,  it  becomes  simply  a 
question  of  time  and  money  to  the  student  of  science  how  far  he 
shall  pursue  philosophical  studies  in  addition  to  his  principal  work. 
— From  a  Communication  to  '■'The  Tech.,"  April  9,  1891. 


THE  TECHNICAL  SCHOOL  AND  THE 
UNIVERSITY 

189} 


An  Answer  to  an  Article  Entitlkd  "  Relations 
OF  Academic  and  Technical  Instruction,"  bt  Pro- 
fessor Nathaniel  Soutugate  Shaler,  Published  in 
THE  Atlantic  Monthly,  August,  1893.  From  the  Atlantic 
Monthly,  Sefteiiber,  1893. 


The  main  points  of  Professor  Shaler's  argu- 
ment are  sufficiently  indicated  in  President 
Walker's  reply. 


THE    TECHNICAL    SCHOOL    AND    THE 
UNIVEESITY. 

In  the  August  number  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly  Pro- 
fessor Shaler  has  discussed  the  relations  of  academic  and 
technical  instruction  in  a  way  which  brings  the  reader 
to  some  startling  conclusions.  So  great  are  the  advan- 
tages which  a  technical  school  is  shown  to  derive  from 
association  with  a  university,  so  heavy  the  liabilities  to 
narrowness  and  smallness  of  aim  and  purpose  in  the  case 
of  an  independent  school,  that  those  of  us  who  are  con- 
nected with  technical  schools  not  attached  to  universi- 
ties find  ourselves  put  upon  our  defense;  and  this,  too, 
under  very  serious  charges.  If  any  large  part  of  Pro- 
fessor Shaler's  position  can  be  maintained,  we  are  of- 
fenders against  the  cause  of  sound  education.  It  is  our 
duty  at  once  to  seek  the  sheltering  arms  of  the  nearest 
university;  or,  if  there  be  none  near  enough  to  take 
charge  of  us,  then  we  ought  to  disband  and  to  send  our 
students  to  those  who  can  do  better  by  them.  Professor 
Shaler  does,  indeed,  admit  that  in  a  favorable  environ- 
ment a  separate  school  may  achieve  a  partial  success; 
but  he  holds  that  this  success  is  likely  to  be  temporary, 
and  at  the  best  is  attained  through  the  sacrifice  of  im- 
portant educational  interests.  In  view  of  such  a  decla- 
ration by  the  dean  of  a  technical  school^  enjoying  the 
^  The  Lawrence  Scientific  School. — Ed. 


40  TECHNOLOQIGAL  EDUCATION. 

protection  and  patronage  of  a  great  university,  it  is  im- 
perative that  those  who  have  to  do  with  detached  schools 
shall  speak  in  their  own  behalf.  The  controversy  is  not 
of  our  seeking;  and  we  must  be  pardoned  if  we  speak 
with  frankness  on  all  the  points  at  issue. 

In  the  first  place,  it  may  not  unfairly  be  said  that,  if 
the  advantages  of  a  connection  with  a  university  are  so 
great,  it  is  inexplicable  that  the  effect  of  this  should  not 
more  clearly  appear  in  the  history  of  that  school  which 
Professor  Shaler  mentions  as  the  first  of  its  class  to  be 
established,  and  to  which,  through  the  whole  extent  of 
his  article,  he  refers  in  illustration  of  his  principle. 
Harvard,  as  he  says,  has  exercised  an  admirable  hospi- 
tality toward  many  true  and  useful  forms  of  learning. 
Its  scientific  department  was  founded  under  peculiarly 
fortunate  conditions:  a  handsome  endowment,  a  noble 
name,  a  cultivated  community,  association  with  the 
oldest  college  in  the  country,  proximity  to  the  richest 
manufacturing  district.  All  these  things  seemed  to 
assure  success;  yet  the  Lawrence  School  graduated  twice 
as  many  pupils  in  the  first  half  as  it  has  in  the  last  half 
of  its  history.  Meanwhile,  scores  of  technical  schools 
have  come  into  existence,  often  under  circumstances 
most  adverse  and  with  means  painfully  limited;  have 
groAvn  in  numbers  and  increased  in  reputation  through- 
out the  general  community;  and  have  even  come,  in 
spite  of  prejudice,  to  command  a  high  degree  of  respect 
and  esteem  from  representatives  of  the  old  education. 
Does  not  this  contrast  fairly  awaken  incredulity  as  to 


TECHNICAL  SCHOOL  AND  UNIVEBSITT.  41 

Professor  Shaler's  argument,  if  indeed  it  does  not  create 
a  strong  presumption  that  he  has  overlooked  some  ele- 
ment, or  elements,  vital  to  the  case  ? 

The  strongest  instance  in  apparent  corroboration  of 
Professor  Shaler's  views  is  that  afforded  by  the  Sheifield 
School  of  New  Haven.  Here  is  a  scientific  school,  giv- 
ing a  large  amount  of  technical  instruction,  which  was 
founded  in  connection  with  a  university  and  has 
achieved  eminent  success.  Yet  to  anyone  who  knows 
the  history  of  the  Sheffield  School,  its  experiences  are 
directly  in  contravention  of  Professor  Shaler's  views, 
and  indeed  furnish  the  most  important  instance  which 
could  be  cited  against  his  position.  Every  Yale  man 
knows  that  the  Sheffield  School  grew  up  under  the  total 
neglect  of  the  corporation  of  the  college,  for  that  body 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  curriculum,  and  did  abso- 
lutely nothing  as  to  the  selection  of  the  teachers.  Dur- 
ing the  eight  and  a  half  years  of  my  connection  with  the 
Sheffield  School^  I  but  once  saw  the  president  of  Yale 
in  a  meeting  of  its  faculty,  and  that  was  by  special  ap- 
pointment, with  reference  to  the  question  whether  the 
students  should  be  required  to  attend  morning  prayers. 
So  little  had  the  school,  in  its  early  days,  been  considered 
by  the  corporation  that  when  the  Battell  Chapel  was 
erected,  about  1873,  no  provision  was  made  for  giving 
the  Sheffield  undergraduates  seats  in  it.  Down  to  the 
accession  of  President  Dwight  the  actual   governing 

'  General  Walker  was  Professor  of  Political  Economy  at  the  Shef- 
field Scientific  School  from  1873  to  1881.— Ed. 


42  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

body  was  the  faculty,  under  the  admirable  chairmanship 
of  Professor  George  J.  Brush.  The  faculty  made  out 
the  budget,  cut  down  their  own  salaries  whenever  that 
was  necessary,  apportioned  the  funds  for  laboratory  and 
general  expenses,  and  selected  the  men  who  were  to  be 
appointed  to  positions  which  had  become  vacant  or 
which  it  was  deemed  desirable  to  create.  Not  a  single 
instance  occurred  where  the  choice  of  a  professor  was 
not  solely  and  exclusively  the  work  of  the  existing 
faculty.  The  appointment,  in  the  legal  sense,  had  of 
course  to  come  from  the  corporation;  but  in  no  case  did 
that  body  or  the  president  take  any  initiative  in  the 
matter. 

It  was  under  conditions  like  these  that  the  Sheffield 
Scientific  School  passed  through  the  years  during  which 
its  character  was  being  molded  and  its  scholarly  tradi- 
tions formed.  I  understand  that  Dr.  Dwight,  since  his 
inauguration,  has  entered  deeply  into  the  questions  re- 
lating to  the  Sheffield  School  and  takes  an  active  part  in 
its  councils.  No  more  generous  and  comprehensive 
mind  could  be  brought  to  the  problems  of  any  institu- 
tion; and  I  am  far  from  thinking  that,  with  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  school  already  formed,  the  new  regime  will 
not  be  consistent  with  continued  growth  and  prosperity; 
but  I  am  fully  convinced  that  Sheffield  owes  no  small 
part  of  its  brilliant  success  to  the  Cinderella-like  abase- 
ment and  neglect  in  which  its  work  was  begun  and  con- 
tinued until  the  institution  had  passed  from  the  gristle 
of  youth  into  the  solid  bone  of  manhood. 


TECnmCAL  SCHOOL  AND  UNIVERSITY.  43 

So  much  for  the  Lawrence  and  Sheffield  Schools  as 
bearing  on  the  issue  which  Professor  Shaler  has  raised. 
Other  technical  schools  have  been  founded  in  connection 
with  universities,  and  some  of  them  have  done  good 
work.  But  I  know  no  reason  for  attributing  to  the 
School  of  Mines,  in  Columbia  College,  a  higher  charac- 
ter than  that  borne  by  the  Stevens  Institute,  a  detached 
school  upon  the  opposite  bank  of  the  Hudson;  while 
against  the  success  attained  by  Sibley  College,  of  Cor- 
nell University,  may  fairly  be  set  the  rolls  of  the  alumni 
of  the  Rensselaer  Polytechnic  of  Troy,  the  Rose  Poly- 
technic of  Terre  Haute,  and  the  Massachusetts  Institute 
of  Technology. 

But  let  us  leave  the  comparison  of  technical  schools 
under  the  two  systems,  in  order  to  examine  the  reasons, 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  which  are  adduced  as  showing 
that  connection  with  a  university  is  not  merely  a  favor- 
able and  fortunate  condition,  but  a  condition  essential 
to  the  proper  development  and  perfecting  of  every  tech- 
nical school.  Professor  Shaler's  first  plea  has  relation 
to  the  administration.  He  argues  that  a  competent 
governing  body  is  of  the  first  importance  in  the  career 
of  any  institution  of  learning;  that  it  is  very  difficult  to 
obtain  a  competent  body;  and  that,  therefore,  when  an 
able  and  successful  administration  has  been  secured  for 
a  university,  it  must  needs  be  of  great  service  to  a  tech- 
nical school  to  come  under  that  rule,  and  thus  to  be 
saved  from  the  many  possible  and  even  probable  disad- 
vantages attendant  upon   an  organization  of  its  own 


44  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

board  of  trust.  What  Professor  Shaler  says  regarding 
the  vital  importance  of  a  strong  but  liberal  and  compre- 
hensive government  is  true.  Yet,  when  we  are  con- 
sidering the  question  of  the  government  of  a  technical 
school,  it  must  be  said  that  there  is  one  element  of  even 
more  importance  than  the  business  ability  or  intellectual 
power  of  its  administrators.  This  is  that  they  shall  be 
deeply  interested  in  the  work;  that  they  shall  thoroughly 
believe  in  technical  education;  that  they  shall  unaffect- 
edly and  profoundly  respect  the  kind  of  man  who  is  to 
teach  in  such  a  school,  and  the  kind  of  pupil  who  is  to 
receive  the  teaching.  Possibly  this  is  one  of  the  ele- 
ments which  Professor  Shaler  has  overlooked.  Pos- 
sibly in  this  respect  there  has  been  some  failure  among 
corporations  or  boards  of  trust  composed  of  men  bred  in 
the  old  education,  and  having  their  standards  and  ideals 
of  character  and  of  conduct  shaped  by  the  influence  of 
classical  culture.  Possibly  this  explains  the  compara- 
tive failure  of  some  technical  schools  connected  with 
universities.  Professor  Shaler  admits  that  "  still,  to 
this  day,  the  tendency  has  been  to  regard  this  depart- 
ment of  instruction  as  something  much  below  the  uni- 
versity grade."  Until  that  tendency  shall  have  been 
completely  arrested,  and  even  reversed,  may  it  not  be 
better  that  this  department  of  instruction  shall  be  under 
the  control  and  direction  of  its  own  devoted  friends? 
For  myself,  I  believe  that  scientific  and  technical  educa- 
tion always  encounters  a  grave  risk  when  put  out  to 
nurse  with  representatives  of  classical  culture. 


TECHNICAL  SCHOOL  AND  UNIVERSITY.  45 

Moreover,  conceding,  as  has  been  done,  the  difficulty 
of  securing  an  adequate  governing  body  for  any  institu- 
tion of  learning,  it  may  yet  be  said  that  this  difficulty  is 
not  insuperable.  The  Institute  of  Technology  has  had 
among  its  trustees,  to  mention  none  of  the  living,  men 
like  Jacob  Bigelow,  Erastus  B.  Bigelow,  John  D.  Phil- 
brick,  James  B.  Francis,  George  B.  Emerson,  J.  Inger- 
soll  Bowditch,  Charles  L.  Flint — ^men  fit  to  take  part  in 
the  deliberations  of  senates  or  of  universities,  able  in 
business,  large  of  view,  and  faithful  to  every  trust.  If 
other  technical  schools,  less  fortunately  situated,  have 
suffered  somewhat  from  the  lack  of  liberal  and  compre- 
hensive administration,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
same  is  true  of  all  the  smaller  colleges  of  the  land.  If 
detached  technical  schools  are  to  be  given  up  on  this 
account,  so  must  these.  Yet  who  does  not  believe  that, 
in  spite  of  limited  opportunities  and  means,  our  smaller 
colleges  have  done  a  truly  glorious  work  for  mind  and 
manhood? 

The  second  advantage,  or  group  of  advantages,  which 
Professor  Shaler  attributes  to  a  technical  school  under 
the  patronage  of  a  university  may  be  said  to  relate  to 
the  students  as  distinguished  from  the  governing  body. 
The  subject  is  necessarily  somewhat  vague.  I  am  not 
sure  that  I  rightly  apprehend  Professor  Shaler's  mean- 
ing at  all  points;  but,  so  far  as  I  can  gather  his  views, 
he  thinks  the  pupils  derive  a  benefit  in  each  of  the  fol- 
lowing ways: 

First,  the  student  in  such  a  school  finds  himself,  in 


46  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

classes  pursuing  certain  subjects  essential  to  his  course, 
in  company  with  students  not  intending  to  adopt  tech- 
nical professions.  These  subjects  may  be,  for  example, 
chemistry,  geology,  physics,  or  mathematics — subjects 
which  form  the  groundwork  of  technical  courses,  and 
which  may  also  be  pursued  by  college  students  as  a  part 
of  their  general  training.  Professor  Shaler  regards  this 
association  as  a  source  of  much  advantage,  applying  to 
it  the  term  "  educative  companionship."  I  confess  that, 
unless  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  the  non-technical  stu- 
dents are  the  better  men  or  the  better  scholars,  this  idea 
appears  to  me  very  far-fetched.  The  notion  that  be- 
cause a  young  man  is  going  to  enter,  two  or  three  years 
hence,  a  law  school,  a  medical  school,  or  a  divinity 
school,  he  therefore  contributes  some  special  flavor  or 
savor  to  his  class  in  chemistry,  or  physics,  or  geology,  or 
mathematics  to-day,  is  carrying  the  doctrine  of  final 
cause  to  an  extreme. 

There  is  only  one  assumption  upon  which  this  plea, 
conceding  the  equal  merit  of  the  students  engaged,  can 
have  any  validity.  That  assumption  is  often  made  by 
advocates  of  the  old  culture;  but  I  am  reluctant  to  be- 
lieve that  Professor  Shaler  could  possibly  adopt  it,  al- 
though he  seems  to  do  so  when  he  speaks  of  "  a  truly 
academic  atmosphere  "  as  "  one  in  which  knowledge  and 
a  capacity  for  inquiry  are  valued  for  their  own  sake,  and 
not  measured  by  their  uses  in  economic  employment." 
The  fling  at  technical  studies  as  less  "  disinterested  " 
than  studies  which  are  pursued  without  a  direct  object 


TECHNICAL  SCHOOL  AND  UNIVERSITY.  47 

is  one  which  has  often  been  made  in  recent  educational 
controversy;  but  those  who  use  it  have  not  seemed  to 
me  to  show  thereby  their  own  superior  liberality  of 
mind.^     A  young  man  who  is  faithfully  seeking  to 

'  The  practical  uselessness  for  any  immediate  purpose  of  a  given 
subject  of  study  may  be  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  pursued;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  high  immediate  usefulness  of  a  subject  of 
study  furnishes  no  ground  from  which  the  educator  of  loftiest  aims 
and  purest  ideals  should  regard  it  with  contempt  or  distrust.  In 
either  case,  the  question  of  real  import  is  in  what  spirit  the  study  is 
pursued.  The  most  distinguished  French  writer  of  to-day  on  mat- 
ters of  education,  writing,  too,  in  advocacy  not  of  physical  but  of 
social  science,  has  frankly  paid  his  tribute  to  the  disinterestedness  of 
spirit  and  loftiness  of  motive  which  promote  and  direct  scientific  re- 
search, even  in  its  most  practical  applications.  "  Let  us,"  he  says, 
"  pass  in  review  the  great  founders  of  modern  science  and  the  cre- 
ators of  industry,  the  Keplers  and  the  Fultons,  and  we  shall  be 
struck  by  the  idealistic  and  even  Utopian  tendency  peculiar  to 
them.  They  are,  in  their  own  way,  dreamers,  artists,  poets,  con- 
trolled by  experience." 

And  if,  leaving  abstract  reasoning,  we  turn  to  contemplate  the 
manner  in  which  the  several  professions  are  practiced  in  the  commu- 
nity, I  seem  to  find  corroboration  of  the  view  that  the  study  of 
science  and  its  applications  to  the  arts  of  life  do  not  tend  to  produce 
sordid  character  or  to  confine  the  man  merely  to  material  aims. 
Every  profession  has  its  black  sheep  and  its  doubtful  practitioners, 
but,  while  frankly  admitting  that  there  are  mercenary  physicists  and 
chemists  for  revenue  only,  I  boldly  challenge  comparison  between 
the  scientific  men  of  America,  as  a  body,  and  its  literary  men  or  even 
its  artists,  in  the  respects  of  devotion  to  truth,  of  simple  confidence 
in  the  right,  of  delight  in  good  work  for  good  work's  sake,  of  indis- 
position to  coin  name  and  fame  into  money,  of  unwillingness  to  use 
one  thing  that  is  well  done  as  a  means  of  passing  oflE  upon  the  public 
three  or  four  things  that  are  ill  done.  I  know  the  scientific  men  of 
America  well,  and  I  entertain  a  profound  conviction  that  in  sincerity, 
simplicity,  fidelity,  and  generosity  of  character,  in  nobility  of  aims 
and  earnestness  of  effort,  in  everything  which  should  be  involved  in 
the  conception  of  disinterestedness,  they  are  surpassed.  If  indeed  they 
are  approached,  by  no  other  body  of  Ta.&a..—From  Remarks  at  the 
Dedication  of  the  New  Science  and  Engineering  Buildings  of  McOill 
University,  Montreal,  February  24,  1893. 


48  TECHNOLOaiGAL  EDUCATION. 

qualify  himself  for  an  honorable  and  useful  career  in 
life  may  be  disinterested  in  every  sense  in  which  that 
word  can  be  used  with  approbation.  Disinterestedness, 
in  its  true  meaning,  depends,  not  upon  the  studies  pur- 
sued, not  upon  their  immediate  usefulness  or  uselessness, 
but  upon  the  spirit  in  which  the  student  enters  upon  and 
pursues  his  work.  If  there  be  intellectual  honesty, 
if  there  be  zeal  in  investigation,  if  there  be  delight  in 
discovery,  if  there  be  fidelity  to  the  truth  as  it  is  dis- 
cerned, nothing  more  can  be  asked  by  the  educator  of 
highest  aims.  With  such  a  student  the  useful  applica- 
tions of  science  distinctly  add  to  the  educational  value 
of  scientific  study,  inasmuch  as  they  give  a  more  di- 
rect object  to  his  efforts  and  exertions,  and  heighten 
the  pleasure  he  feels  at  each  step  of  his  scholarly 
progress. 

The  next  advantage  under  this  head  which  Professor 
Shaler  finds  in  technical  schools  un4er  the  patronage  of 
universities  is  in  the  opportunity  afforded  to  the  pupils 
to  mingle  some  philosophical  studies  with  those  which 
are  essential  to  their  professional  courses.  In  this  con- 
nection it  must  be  confessed  that  the  faculties  of  many, 
perhaps  of  most,  technical  schools  have  made  a  mistake 
in  not  providing  more  so-called  liberal  studies.  I  agree 
fully  with  Professor  Shaler  in  the  opinion  that  such  a 
union  would  conduce  to  ultimate  professional  success, 
as  well  as  to  the  greater  happiness  of  the  man  and  the 
greater  usefulness  of  the  citizen.  But  the  mistake  re- 
ferred to  may  be  fairly  attributed  to  the  youth,  and  also. 


TECHNICAL  SCHOOL  AND  UNIVERSITY.  49 

in  some  measure,  to  the  poverty  of  the  technical  schools. 
That  it  is  not  in  the  nature  of  the  case  is  shown  by  the 
curriculum  of  the  Institute  of  Technology,  where  liter- 
ary and  philosophical  studies  extending  over  three  years 
are  required  of  all  candidates  for  a  degree.  Of  the 
Sheffield  Scientific  School,  in  this  respect,  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  its  students  have  for  twenty-five  years  en- 
joyed the  teaching  of  William  D.  Whitney  and  Thomas 
R.  Lounsbury. 

Another  advantage  which  Professor  Shaler  discerns 
as  attaching  to  professional  schools  under  the  patronage 
of  universities  is  not  easy  of  description  or  definition. 
It  may,  perhaps,  be  expressed  by  the  single  word  "  at- 
mosphere." That  there  is  something  in  it  no  one  will 
deny;  but  the  utmost  benefit  which  the  students  of  a 
technical  school  can  derive  from  this  source  may  easily 
be  offset,  many  times  over,  by  disadvantages  arising 
from  other  sources.  The  history  of  Amherst,  Dart- 
mouth, and  Williams,  and  of  many  other  American  col- 
leges abundantly  shows  that  the  best  atmosphere  for  a 
student  is  that  which  he  himself  brings  to  college  with 
him  in  his  own  energy,  fidelity,  and  scholarly  zeal;  that 
the  next  best  atmosphere  is  that  created  by  learned, 
laborious,  and  high-minded  teachers;  the  next  best,  that 
created  by  a  body  of  devoted  fellow  students,  all  intent 
upon  the  work  of  preparation  for  life.  Loafing  in  aca- 
demic groves  or  browsing  around  among  the  varied 
foliage  and  herbage  of  a  great  university,  pleasant  as  it 
may  be,  and  well  enough  in  its  way,  will  have  little  effect 


60  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

upon  the  making  of  the  man,  in  comparison  with  influ- 
ences more  serious,  more  pervasive,  more  penetrating. 

That  the  students  of  technology  throughout  our  coun- 
try do,  as  a  body,  apply  themselves  to  their  tasks  with 
wonderful  energy  and  enthusiasm  is  a  fact  so  familiar 
that  it  hardly  needs  to  be  adverted  to  here.  The  acces- 
sion of  such  students  to  a  great  university  would  doubt- 
less do  much  good  to  the  university;  but  that  the  tech- 
nical school  would  be  better  for  the  association  may  be 
questioned,  in  view  of  the  multitude  of  distractions 
which  beset  ordinary  student  life  and  the  frivolity  of 
many  of  the  interests  which  are  there  deemed  of  prime 
importance.  On  their  part,  young  men  do  not  greatly 
care  to  go  to  schools  where  they  are  not  respected  equally 
with  the  best;  where  all  the  praise  and  all  the  prizes  go 
to  others;  where  the  stained  fingers  and  rough  clothes 
of  the  laboratory  mark  them  as  belonging  to  a  class  less 
distinguished  than  students  of  classics  or  philosophy. 
Professor  Shaler  remarks  upon  "  ancient  prejudices  con- 
cerning the  humble  position  of  all  mechanical  employ- 
ments." Is  it  quite  certain  that  those  prejudices  are 
even  yet  so  far  worn  out  of  the  public  mind  that  the 
students  and  teachers  of  technology  may  not  feel  more 
at  ease  by  themselves,  in  schools  devoted  to  their  own 
purposes,  than  in  schools  where  snobbishness  makes 
odious  comparisons,  and  where  fashions  are  set  in  re- 
spect to  student  life,  conduct,  and  dress  which  they  have 
neither  the  means  nor  the  inclination  to  imitate? 

With  much  of  what  Professor  Shaler  says  regarding 


TECHNICAL  SCHOOL  AND  TTNIVEB8ITT.  51 

the  desirability  of  preparing  young  men  for  the  tech- 
nical professions  more  by  inculcating  principles  and  in- 
spiring a  zejal  for  investigation  and  a  love  of  learning, 
and  less  by  imparting  mere  information  and  teaching 
useful  knacks  and  devices,  I  heartily  concur.  Too 
much  cannot  be  said  upon  this  theme.  But  the  ques- 
tion does  not  necessarily  concern  the  issue  raised  by  Pro- 
fessor Shaler.  More  than  one  detached  school  has 
shown  the  liberality  of  sentiment,  the  comprehensiveness 
of  view,  and  the  high  moral  courage  necessary  to  place 
and  maintain  technical  education  upon  a  lofty  plane. 


THE  RELATION  OF  PROFESSIONAL 
AND  TECHNICAL  TO  GENERAL 
EDUCATION 

1894 


An  argument  against  the  thesis  that  a  liberal 
education  should  embrace  three  separate  zones  : 
disciplinary,  liberalizing,  professional  or  tech- 
nical. From  the  Editcational  Beview,  December, 
1894. 


THE  EELATION  OF  PEOFESSIONAL  AND  TECH- 
NICAL TO  GENEEAL  EDUCATION. 

Last  winter  I  listened  to  an  address  from  a  gentleman 
of  the  highest  distinction,  connected  with  the  educa- 
tional interests  of  New  England,  on  the  subject  of  "  A 
Liberal  Education,"  of  which  the  leading  thought  was 
that,  in  an  ideal  course  of  education,  a  young  man  would 
pass  successively  through  three  stages:  first,  disciplinary; 
second,  liberalizing;  third,  professional  or  technical. 
According  to  the  view  presented,  these  three  stages  are 
passed,  with  us  here  in  America,  successively  in  the  pre- 
paratory school,  that  is,  the  high  school  or  so-called 
academy;  in  the  college;  and,  finally,  as  the  name  im- 
plies, in  the  professional  school,  whether  of  law,  of  medi- 
cine, of  divinity,  or  of  technology. 

In  the  middle  term  or  stage  of  this  course — that  is,  in 
the  college — it  was  the  view  of  the  speaker  that  the 
liberalizing  studies  should  be  pursued  with  a  good  deal 
of  range  as  to  choice  of  subjects,  and  of  leisure  as  to  the 
time  devoted  to  study,  to  reflection,  to  enjoyment  of 
work,  and  even  to  enjoyment  of  sport  and  play.  Free- 
dom, a  considerable  degree  of  freedom,  involving,  as 
was  said,  both  liberty  of  choice  as  to  the  subjects  of 
study,  and  leisure  as  to  the  application  of  the  student's 
powers,  the  occupation  of  his  mind,  the  use  of  his  time, 

55 


66  TECHNOLOQICAL  EDUCATION. 

was,  if  not  an  essential  of  the  liberalizing  effect,  at  least 
a  most  favorable  and  felicitous  condition. 

Looking  at  this  scheme  from  beginning  to  end,  as  re- 
lated to  the  existing  organization  of  American  schools 
and  higher  institutions  of  learning,  several  questions 
suggest  themselves  in  a  way  to  cast  some  doubt  upon 
the  apparent  harmony  of  the  educational  process  de- 
picted. 

The  first  is,  whether  our  high  schools  and  academies 
can  be  given  the  credit  of  bringing  their  students  up  to 
the  grade  of  thoroughly  disciplined  young  men;  whether 
the  graduates  of  Exeter  and  Andover,  Easthampton,  the 
Boston  Latin  School,  and  the  ordinary  American  city 
high  school,  can  safely  be  assumed  to  have  passed 
through  a  sufficiently  long  and  severe  disciplinary 
process  to  make  it  desirable  that,  immediately  upon 
entering  college,  they  should  be  subjected  to  the  relax- 
ing process;  be  treated  in  every  way  as  well-trained 
men;  be  afforded  large  choice  as  to  subjects  of  study  and 
as  to  the  mode  of  pursuing  the  subjects  chosen,  with 
abundance  of  leisure  for  intellectual  enjoyment,  and 
even  for  sport  and  play.  I  confess  that  this  seems  to  me 
rather  a  roseate  view  of  our  academies  and  high  schools. 
Even  if  it  be  conceded  that  the  graduates  of  such  schools 
have  already  had  quite  enough  of  mere  grammatical  and 
mathematical  drill,  and  that  the  full  time  has  come  for 
them  to  be  exercised  in  studies  appealing  to  taste  and 
sentiment,  in  studies  of  an  especially  liberalizing  tend- 
ency, it  seems  to  me  fairly  a  question  whether  their 


PROFESSIONAL  AND  GENERAL  EDUCATION.         57 

tasks,  in  this  stage  of  education,  should  not  still  be  made 
to  have  a  distinctly  disciplinary  character.  Can  a  young 
man  be  said  to  have  passed  through  the  disciplinary 
period  until  he  has  been  subjected  both  to  mathematical 
and  grammatical  gymnastics,  and  to  hard,  positive 
training  in  the  elements  of  logic,  philosophy,  and  clas- 
sical scholarship  on  the  one  hand,  or  of  physical  or  nat- 
ural science  on  the  other?  From  my  own  observation 
of  several  classes  leaving  a  preparatory  school,  and  of 
several  times  that  number  of  freshman  classes  entering 
a  college  or  technical  school,  as  well  as  from  reflection 
upon  the  nature  of  the  case,  I  should  not  be  disposed  to 
answer  the  foregoing  question  in  the  affirmative.  On  the 
contrary,  I  believe  that  the  first  two  years  of  the  ordinary 
American  college  course  should  be  regarded  as  belong- 
ing distinctly  to  the  disciplinary  stage,  in  which  the  sub- 
jects of  study  should  be  prescribed  by  teachers  to  pupils; 
in  which  lessons  should  be  regularly  assigned  and  reci- 
tations punctiliously  exacted,  the  idea  of  mental  exercise 
and  training  forming  still  the  predominant  motive  on 
the  part  of  the  instructor.  In  saying  that,  in  this  stage 
of  education,  subjects  of  study  should  be  prescribed  by 
teachers  to  pupils,  it  is  not  meant  that  the  same  subjects 
should  necessarily  be  prescribed  to  all  pupils.  Con- 
sideration might  be  had,  in  a  large  degree,  of  individual 
aptitudes  and  inclinations. 

A  more  fundamental  objection  to  the  view  of  college 
life  to  which  I  have  called  attention  is  found  in  the 
length  of  the  term  assigned  by  it  to  the  stage  of  educa- 


58  TECENOLOOICAL  EDUCATION. 

tion  in  which  a  considerable  degree  of  leisure  is  to  be 
allowed  the  student  as  a  liberalizing  influence.  If  all 
our  young  men  came  up  to  college  at  eighteen  years  of 
age  with  thoroughly  well-disciplined  minds,  I  should 
still  be  disposed  to  doubt  whether  four  years  could  be 
spent  to  advantage  by  any  of  them  without  a  strong 
daily  sense  of  present  obligation,  and  without  a  con- 
siderable pressure  from  duties  rigorously  exacted. 
None  of  us  would  grudge  to  a  young  man,  at  some  time 
or  other,  before  his  entrance  into  real  life,  or  before  be- 
ginning a  severe  course  of  professional  preparation,  as 
much  as  a  year  of  leisure,  especially  if  it  could  be  com- 
bined with  opportunities  for  travel,  or  with  studies  in 
art,  music,  and  fine  letters.  But  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  any  young  man  was  ever  the  better  for  four 
years  of  drifting  and  comparative  aimlessness  and  idle- 
ness, even  though  no  distinctly  bad  habits  were  formed 
in  that  period.  If,  in  single  instances,  so  long  a  period 
of  leisurely  study  not  directed  upon  an  object,  and  with 
no  severe  and  constant  pressure  from  without,  should 
prove  to  be  just  what  a  peculiarly  felicitous  organiza- 
tion might  require,  a  teacher  might  well  fear  that,  with 
a  great  majority  of  the  members  of  any  college  class,  the 
habits  of  mind  thus  formed  would  be  seriously  injurious 
in  subsequent  professional  study  and  professional  prac- 
tice. There  could  not  fail  to  be  danger  that,  after  so 
long  a  relaxing  process,  many  young  men,  not  of  heroic 
mold,  would  fail  to  pull  themselves  together  again,  and 
would  enter  upon  the  real  duties  of  life  with  somewhat 


PROFESSIONAL  AND  GENERAL  EDUCATION.       59 

less  of  energy,  of  incisiveness,  of  self-control,  of  self- 
command,  than  is  needed  by  those  who  are  to  do  real 
work  with  all  their  mind  and  with  all  their  might. 

But  I  am  obliged  further  to  raise  the  question  whether 
freedom,  in  the  sense  of  comparative  liberty  of  choice 
and  comparative  leisure  in  study,  involving  the  absence 
of  severe  and  punctilious  requirements  on  the  part  of  the 
teacher,  is  any  necessary  condition,  at  all,  of  a  truly 
liberalizing  process.  I  would  not  seek  to  disparage  in 
the  slightest  degree  the  value  of  liberal  or  liberalizing 
exercises,  whether  with  reference  to  personal  happiness 
and  social  influence  in  after-life,  or  with  reference  to 
subsequent  professional  labors.  Merely  for  business 
success  in  the  most  distinctly  technical  profession,  philo- 
sophical studies  are  of  great  importance.  In  none  of 
the  higher  walks  of  life  does  it  ever  cease  to  be  more  the 
question  how  much  of  a  man  one  is,  than  how  much  he 
knows  of  his  special  business.  And  this  is  even  more 
distinctly  true  in  the  engineering  profession,  for 
example,  than  in  the  law.  A  great  lawyer  generally  is 
a  great  man,  but  he  need  not  be:  there  is  a  melancholy 
abundance  of  instances  to  the  contrary.  But  a  great 
engineer  must  be  a  great  man.  All  great  engineers, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  those  who  knew  them, 
have  been  great  men.  The  greatest  engineers  of  the 
world's  history  have  been  very  great  men.  The  re- 
sponsibilities they  have  had  to  bear,  the  choices  they 
have  been  called  to  make  between  widely  different  ways 
of  reaching  the  object  sought,  the  portentous  conse- 


60  TECHNOLOQICAL  EDUCATION. 

quences  of  anv  mistakes  they  miglit  commit,  the  unique 
character  of  every  important  engineering  work,  which 
reduces  the  value  of  precedent  to  a  minimum,  and,  I 
might  add,  the  fact  that  in  a  large  proportion  of  impor- 
tant engineering  enterprises  it  is  the  faith  and  courage 
and  enthusiasm  of  the  engineer  which  carry  his  con- 
stituency with  him  and  cause  it  to  be  decided  that  the 
work  shall  be  undertaken  and  the  means  found — all 
these  conditions  make  demands  which  can  be  met  only 
by  men  of  calm  mind,  of  large  views,  of  highly  con- 
servative yet  boldly  daring  temperament,  of  thorough 
self-mastery,  of  great  power  over  others.  These  are  in 
part  the  gifts  of  nature;  but  they  are  also,  in  great  part, 
the  fruits  of  culture. 

My  contention  is,  therefore,  not  against  the  introduc- 
tion of  liberal  studies,  upon  the  most  liberal  scale, 
whether  for  cultivation  or  as  a  means  to  subsequent 
professional  success,  but  only  against  the  assumption 
that  liberal  studies,  to  secure  the  best  effect,  must  be  pur- 
sued, with  a  special  degree  of  liberty  of  choice  and  with 
leisureliness  of  effort.  On  the  contrary,  I  am  disposed 
to  hold  that  liberal  studies  should  he  severely  pursued; 
and  that  for  the  highest  results,  the  more  liberalizing 
the  tendency  of  any  intellectual  exercise,  the  more  is  it 
to  be  desired  that  it  should  be  followed  out  with  energy, 
with  closeness  of  application,  with  punctiliousness  of  per- 
formance, with  careful  scrutiny  of  the  results  obtained. 
Certainly,  the  men  of  our  race  who  have  most  conspicu- 
ously illustrated  the  virtue  of  mental  cultivation  do  not 


PROFESSIONAL  AND  GENERAL  EDUCATION.       61 

make  upon  us  the  impression  that  they  won  their  grace 
and  power  easily  and  lightly. 

But  is  this  theory  of  separate  zones  through  which  the 
student  should  successively  pass  in  the  course  of  his  edu- 
cation tenable  in  any  part?  I  do  not  question  that  the 
terms,  disciplinary,  liberalizing,  and  professional,  may 
be  applied  to  three  stages  of  intellectual  progress;  but  I 
should  admit  these  terms  only  as  characterizing  the  pre- 
ponderant nature  of  the  exercises  pursued  during  these 
successive  stages.  It  is  the  greatest  single  fault  of  our 
academies  and  high  schools  to-day  that  their  curriculum 
contains  so  little  of  philosophical  and  liberalizing 
studies.  Those  schools  will  not  do  the  work  which  the 
student  requires  between  fourteen  and  eighteen,  or  be- 
tween fifteen  and  nineteen,  years  of  age,  until  liberaliz- 
ing, as  distinguished  from  disciplinary,  studies  are 
taught  in  them  in  large  amount  and  by  masters  who  can 
command  the  attention,  awaken  the  interest,  and  direct 
the  utmost  scholarly  efforts  of  their  pupils  upon  themes 
which  appeal  to  taste  and  sentiment,  which  arouse  en- 
thusiasm, which  train  the  student  to  weigh  evidence,  to 
balance  probabilities,  and  to  form  conclusions  for  him- 
self. When  one  remembers  the  subjects  to  which,  sixty 
years  ago,  college  boys  of  only  fifteen  and  sixteen  years 
of  age  applied  themselves,  and  to  which,  thirty  years 
ago,  college  boys  of  only  sixteen  and  seventeen  years 
gave  no  inconsiderable  part  of  their  time,  either  in  the 
recitation  room  or  in  the  literary  or  debating  society,  it 
seems  absurd  to-day  to  see  great  fellows  of  nineteen 


63  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

come  up  to  college  who  have  hardly  ever  been  addressed 
upon  philosophical  themes,  almost  their  whole  educa- 
tional experience  having  been  limited  to  grammatical 
and  mathematical  drill  or  to  the  acquisition  of  positive 
information,  most  of  which  should  have  been  allowed  to 
rest  undisturbed,  until  required  for  actual  use,  in  the 
gazetteer,  the  cyclopedia,  and  the  classical  manual.  It 
is  from  this  point  of  view  that  the  procrastination  of  the 
age  for  entering  college  appears  most  to  be  deprecated. 
It  is  not  primarily  the  loss  of  time  which  one  regrets,  but 
the  fact  that  the  liberalizing  studies  are  introduced  so 
late.  No  boy  ought  to  pass  the  age  of  sixteen  without 
being  addressed  on  philosophical  themes,  without  being 
taught  to  reason,  without  being  made  to  interest  himself 
in  subjects  of  the  highest  moral  and  social  importance. 
So  much  everyone  must  admit.  For  myself,  I  go 
farther,  and  would  say  that  almost  the  only  limit  to  the 
advantageous  introduction  of  liberalizing  studies  into 
the  academy  and  high  school  is  to  be  found  in  the  diffi- 
culty of  securing  teachers  competent  to  awaken  the 
pupils'  minds  and  to  present  the  higher  themes  of 
thought  and  reflection  in  a  simple  and  attractive  man- 
ner. That  is  my  first  criticism  of  the  theory  of  educa- 
tional zones. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  see  no  harm,  but  rather  a  dis- 
tinct advantage,  in  having  the  studies  of  college  inti- 
mate and  introduce  those  of  the  professional  school.  Of 
course,  this  can  be  done  only  when  the  choice  of  a  pro- 
fession has  already  been  made;  but,  where,  as  in  a  large 


PROFESSIONAL  AND  GENERAL  EDUCATION       63 

proportion  of  instances  is  the  case,  the  college  student 
knows  what  his  occupation  in  life  is  to  be,  no  small  part 
of  his  time  in  college  may,  without  any  loss  of  liberaliz- 
ing influence,  be  directed  straight  upon  that  end.  K 
the  student  is  to  go  from  college  to  a  law  school,  why 
should  not  his  college  studies  be  largely  determined  by 
that  fact?  IN^ot  that  he  should  anticipate  in  the  slight- 
est measure  the  technical  study  of  the  law;  but  I  would 
have  a  broad  foundation  laid  for  it  in  the  extensive  culti- 
vation of  history,  of  economics,  of  ethics,  of  logic  and 
philosophy,  and  perhaps  of  Roman  law.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  pupil  looks  forward  to  becoming  a  phy- 
sician, he  might  advantageously  devote  a  part  of  his 
college  course  to  biology,  botany,  physiology,  and 
chemistry.  These  studies  are  admitted  by  nearly  all 
candid  educators  to  be  as  truly  of  a  liberalizing  and  up- 
lifting tendency,  at  least  for  those  who  have  a  natural 
inclination  toward  them,  as  are  the  traditional  exercises 
of  the  classical  college,  at  least  for  such  as  have  not  a 
natural  inclination  toward  them.  Certainly,  among  the 
men  of  our  own  race,  no  finer  examples  of  cultivated 
manhood  can  be  found  than  in  the  ranks  of  those  who 
have  been  eminent  in  natural  history.  Again,  the  pupil 
who  looks  forward  to  a  school  of  engineering,  upon  the 
completion  of  his  college  studies,  might  very  well  de- 
vote a  large  part  of  his  total  time  to  mathematics  and 
physics,  studies  which,  when  properly  pursued,  are  truly 
liberalizing,  refining,  and  elevating. 

It  might  be  supposed  that  the  recommendation  that,  so 


64  TECHNOLOOICAL  EDUCATION. 

far  as  the  plans  of  the  pupil  will  admit,  college  studies 
should  intimate  and  introduce  the  subsequent  work  of 
the  professional  school  was  offered  with  a  view  either  to 
shortening  the  term  of  professional  study  or  to  making 
possible  a  larger  amount  of  professional  attainments  in 
the  result.  And,  indeed,  there  appears  no  sufficient 
objection  to  securing  in  this  way  the  double  object  of 
mental  expansion  and  cultivation,  and  a  fortunate  intro- 
duction to  and  preparation  for  professional  study.  Yet, 
in  making  this  suggestion,  I  have  chiefly  in  view  an- 
other and  a  higher  object.  Through  such  a  use  of  the 
college  term,  the  student  would  enter  the  professional 
school  with  broader  views  and  with  a  nobler  ambition. 
It  seems  not  altogether  for  good  that  a  young  man 
should,  in  effect,  say,  "  I  have  finished  my  term  of  liberal 
education ;  I  will  now  turn,  in  a  different  spirit  and  with 
a  different  purpose,  to  take  up  my  direct  preparation  for 
professional  life."  By  such  a  system  as  has  been  sug- 
gested, a  young  man  who  in  college  had  become  thor- 
oughly interested  in  history,  economics,  ethics,  logic, 
and  philosophy,  would  not  feel  that  he  was  breaking  off 
his  course,  or  was  taking  an  essentially  different  direc- 
tion when  he  entered  the  law  school.  On  the  contrary, 
would  he  not  begin  his  new  work,  not  only  with  a  cer- 
tain valuable  preparation  which  would  be  found  useful 
through  the  whole  extent  of  his  legal  studies,  but  with  a 
larger  comprehension  of  the  social  relations  of  his  pro- 
posed profession,  with  the  capability  for  a  keener  appre- 
ciation of  his  law  school  studies  and  exercises,  and  with 


PROFESSIONAL  AND  GENERAL  EDUCATION.       65 

a  higher  professional  ambition?  Would  not  the  same 
be  true  of  a  student  going  to  a  medical  school  from  a 
college  in  which  he  had  largely  devoted  himself  to 
biology,  botany,  physiology,  and  chemistry;  in  which 
he  had  acquired  not  only  a  certain  amount  of  knowledge 
that  would  become  of  professional  use,  a  certain  skill 
with  the  microscope  and  the  instruments  of  dissection,  a 
certain  instinctive  aptitude  for  experimental  work,  but 
also  a  great  enthusiasm  for  natural  history,  a  profound 
respect  for  its  masters  and  investigators,  a  keen  delight 
in  experiment  and  discovery? 

Finally,  coming  now  to  the  professional  school,  it  ap- 
pears to  me  that  it  should  not  be  the  view  of  those  who 
lay  out  its  courses  and  arrange  its  exercises,  that  either 
the  disciplinary  or  the  liberalizing  work  of  education 
has  been  completed.  So  far  from  this,  I  would  have 
those  who  control  and  administer  the  law  school,  the 
medical  school,  and  the  school  of  engineering,  consider 
it  their  primary  duty  to  train  the  powers  of  the  pupil,  to 
widen  his  outlook  over  life,  to  secure  for  him  the  con- 
servative influences  of  culture,  to  expand  and  enrich  his 
mind,  both  for  his  own  greater  happiness  and  for  his 
higher  usefulness  to  society.  Speaking  as  the  head  of 
a  professional  school,  I  say  in  all  sincerity  that  those  pro- 
fessional schools  will  best  accomplish  their. strictly  tech- 
nical purposes  which  send  their  graduates  out  into  the 
world  with  broad,  well-balanced  minds;  with  the  faculty 
of  judgment  strengthened  by  the  mastery  of  principles 
more  than  by  the  acquisition  of  information;  with  tern- 


68  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

peraments  chastened  to  the  true  union  of  conservatism 
and  enterprise  bj  study  of  the  best  examples  from  prac- 
tice; and  even  with  fine  tastes  and  high  aspirations. 

Reference  has  been  made  to  the  conservative  influ- 
ences of  culture.  It  is  the  one  fatal  weakness  of  the 
self-made  man  that,  at  any  point  in  a  successful  career, 
there  is  a  liability  to  collapse,  or  to  the  commission  of 
first-class  errors  almost  beyond  the  power  of  the  well- 
educated  man  to  commit.  The  ghastliest  mistakes  of 
life  are  those  of  self-made  men  theretofore  successful, 
whether  in  war,  in  politics,  in  professional  practice,  or 
in  business.  It  might  almost  be  said  that  the  greater 
the  degree  of  previous  success,  or  the  more  uniform  that 
success,  the  greater  becomes  the  danger  that,  at  some 
critical  point,  the  self-made  man  will  overestimate  his 
own  powers;  or  foolishly  despise  some  really  formidable 
antagonist  or  competitor  who  does  not  answer  to  his 
notions,  derived  from  a  limited  experience,  of  what  may 
make  an  antagonist  or  competitor  formidable;  or  under- 
rate some  evil  liability  because  it  is  of  a  novel  type;  or 
take  one  thing  for  another  on  account  of  some  superfi- 
cial resemblance;  or  in  some  other  way  commit  the  capi- 
tal blunder  of  his  life.  And  it  is  true,  also,  that  the 
fatal  errors  of  self-made  men  largely  occur  after  the 
period  of  life  when  they  might  perhaps  have  been  re- 
paired. The  educated  man  makes  his  mistakes  at  or 
near  the  start.  The  self-made  man  is  more  likely  to 
make  his  when  it  is  too  late  either  to  learn  from  them  or 
to  surmount  their  consequences. 


PROFESSIONAL  AND  GENERAL  EDUCATION.       67 

Permit  me  to  illustrate  my  views  regarding  the  pro- 
fessional school  as  a  place  where  mental  discipline  and 
mental  culture  are  still  the  first  considerations,  by  a 
somewhat  free  reference  to  the  action  recently  taken  by 
the  authorities  of  a  distinguished  American  university 
in  respect  to  its  law  school.  For  many  years,  it  is  well 
known,  Columbia  College  maintained  a  law  school 
which,  of  its  type,  was  not  surpassed  or  perhaps  equaled 
in  our  country.  A  very  remarkable  amount  of  both 
teaching  and  executive  ability  had  been  employed  in 
securing  for  it  a  pronounced  success  in  carrying  out  its 
fundamental  plan  of  instruction.  Of  late,  however, 
under  the  administration  of  President  Low,  this  school 
has,  in  effect,  been  cut  off  from  the  university;  and  a 
school  of  a  very  different  type,  more  closely  resembling 
the  law  school  of  Harvard  University,  has  been  organ- 
ized in  its  place.  This  action  of  Columbia  College  is 
one  at  which  all  friends  of  education  should  rejoice.  It 
may  be  that  there  is  in  New  York,  and  perhaps  in  other 
large  cities,  a  need  of  law  schools  like  that  so  long  main- 
tained, with  such  remarkable  success,  under  the  dean- 
ship  of  Professor  D wight:  law  schools  in  which  young 
men  who  have  not  the  time  or  means  to  fit  themselves 
fully,  in  a  large  and  liberal  way,  for  that  dignified  and 
honorable  profession,  should  be  enabled  to  acquire, 
rapidly  and  effectively,  the  elements  of  the  law,  and  to 
pick  up  knowledge  enough  to  enable  them  to  pass  the 
bar  examinations:  perhaps  later,  in  the  course  of  prac- 
tice, to  make  themselves  learned  and  accomplished  law- 


68  TECHNOLOOICAL  EDUCATION. 

yers,  perhaps  not.  But  such  an  establishment  ought 
not  to  be  connected  with  a  university.  No  university 
has  the  right  to  maintain  any  school  in  which  the  pri- 
mary object  is  not  to  make  the  pupils  scholars  in  some 
high  sense  of  that  term;  in  which  learning  is  not  to  be 
loved  and  honored  for  its  own  sake,  as  well  as  for  its 
practical  uses;  the  atmosphere  of  which  shall  not  be 
highly  academic;  in  which  much  shall  not  be  taught 
which  the  student  may  not  have  reason  to  employ  in 
the  early  stages,  or  perhaps  in  any  stage,  of  his  profes- 
sional career;  in  which  more  importance  shall  not  be 
attached  to  the  mastery  of  principles  than  to  the  gaining 
of  information  or  to  the  acquisition  of  precepts,  formulae, 
and  the  useful  knacks  and  devices  of  a  trade.  It  is  not 
merely  that  men  who  are  trained  in  schools  maintaining 
a  high  academic  character  are  certain,  in  the  long  run, 
to  achieve  a  greater  professional  success:  an  even 
stronger  reason,  still,  is  found  in  the  consideration  that 
men  thus  educated  are  certain  to  contribute  in  larger 
measure  to  that  dignity  and  esprit  de  corps  which  con- 
stitute the  savor  of  any  profession,  preserving  it,  if  any- 
thing can,  from  corruption  and  degeneration,  from  un- 
worthy arts  and  disreputable  practices. 

The  question  has  of  late  been  actively  discussed 
whether,  for  the  best  effect,  technical  schools  should  be 
connected  with  universities.  The  reason  of  the  case 
seems  to  differ  not  a  little  with  reference  to  different 
classes  of  professional  schools.  The  history  of  our 
country  does  not  teach  that  this  connection  is  highly  im- 


PROFESSIONAL  AND  GENERAL  EDUCATION.       69 

portant  in  schools  of  divinity.  The  schools  of  this  class 
which  have  exerted  the  greatest  influence  upon  the  life 
and  thought  of  the  nation  have  been  separate  schools, 
or  have  been  connected  with  universities  by  a  very  slight 
tie.  Possibly  one  might  say  that  the  reason  for  the 
comparative  success  of  separate  schools  of  divinity  has 
largely  passed  away  with  changed  professional  condi- 
tions and  with  even  greater  changes  in  the  public 
thought.  Seventy  years  ago,  forty  years  ago,  the  min- 
isterial profession  had  much  more  of  an  unworldly  char- 
acter than  it  has  to-day;  and  there  was  a  certain  and  a 
large  advantage,  according  to  the  ideals  of  the  times,  inl 
keeping  the  students  of  divinity  apart  by  themselves,  in 
an  atmosphere  of  their  own,  where  they  should  be  as 
little  as  possible  subject  to  influences  which  might  have 
been  deemed  discordant  with  the  proper  sentiments  of 
the  theological  seminary,  or  might  have  interfered  with 
the  profound  and  lasting  impression  which  the  masters 
of  theology  desired  to  make  upon  their  pupils.  To-day 
the  clergyman  is  largely  a  man  of  affairs;  the  impor- 
tance of  denominational  tenets  is  greatly  reduced,  even 
in  the  minds  of  theologians;  and  it  seems  not  unreason- 
able to  say  that  these  changed  conditions  fairly  remove 
some  part,  at  least,  of  the  special  advantage  formerly 
enjoyed  by  the  separate  schools  of  divinity. 

In  respect  to  schools  of  medicine,  the  evidence  derived 
from  past  experience  is  conflicting.  Certainly,  some  of 
the  strongest  schools  of  this  class  in  the  United  States 
have  held,  at  most,  but  a  nominal  relation  to  universities. 


to  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  it  appears  to  me,  a  layman,  there 
has  always  been  a  certain  leadership  by  schools  inti- 
mately connected  with  universities  and  under  strong  aca- 
demic influences,  notably  in  the  case  of  the  Medical 
School  of  Harvard.  There  seems  little  reason  to  doubt 
that  the  developments  of  the  future  will  be  mainly,  if 
not  wholly,  in  the  direction  of  medical  schools  vitally 
related  to  our  leading  universities,  and  owing  a  large 
share  of  their  scientific  spirit  and  professional  enthu- 
siasm to  such  a  relationship. 

It  is  in  respect  to  law  schools  that  the  considerations 
favoring  the  union  of  professional  schools  with  univer- 
sities attain  their  greatest  force.  The  clerical  profes- 
sion is,  by  the  very  definition,  a  consecrated  profession; 
and  those  who  pursue  it  must  come  and  remain  under 
influences  which  promote  disinterestedness  and  self- 
devotion.  The  medical  profession  is,  in  the  nature  of 
the  case,  at  least  a  semi-consecrated  profession,  the  in- 
tense interest  of  the  physician  in  the  welfare  of  his 
patients  and  in  the  relief  of  pain  and  suffering  neces- 
sarily constituting  a  powerful  force,  which,  in  spite  of 
the  disturbing  influence  of  specialization,  tends  to  make 
the  practitioner  in  a  high  degree  disinterested  and  to 
draw  him  on  from  stage  to  stage  of  true  professional 
advancement.  The  legal  profession,  on  the  contrary, 
alike  through  the  tendency  to  constantly  increasing 
specialization,  through  the  great  rewards  to  be  reaped 
by  professional  success,  and  through  the  large  oppor- 
tunities afforded  for  sharp  practice  and  unworthy  arti- 


PROFESSIONAL  AND  GENERAL  EDUCATION.        VI 

fices,  is  always  in  danger  of  degenerating  into  a  selfish, 
money-making,  and  unprincipled  pursuit.  Painful 
illustrations  of  this  tendency  are  constantly  appearing. 
Under  such  conditions,  everything  that  makes  the  law 
student  more  scholarly,  that  gives  him  a  higher  respect 
for  his  profession,  that  furnishes  him  with  motives  and 
incentives  to  high-mindedness  and  unselfishness  in  prac- 
tice, must  be  for  the  good  of  the  profession  and  the  com- 
munity. And  it  is  here  that  the  influence  of  the 
university  may  be  exerted  to  profit. 

In  the  case  of  the  engineering  school  and  the  school 
of  technology,  the  considerations  which  should  affect  us 
differ  not  a  little  from  those  which  stand  related  to  the 
classes  of  schools  already  mentioned,  owing  to  the  exist- 
ence of  ancient  prejudices,  not  yet  outworn,  in  the  minds 
of  the  general  community  and  especially  of  those  who 
control  our  higher  institutions  of  learning.  The  school 
of  law,  the  school  of  medicine,  the  school  of  divinity  are 
all  academic  by  tradition.  Schools  for  these  classes 
have  for  centuries  been  connected  with  universities; 
their  characteristic  studies  have  won  a  place  in  public 
estimation;  proficiency  in  those  studies  has  long  been 
recognized  by  the  conferring  of  the  highest  academic 
degrees;  students  of  these  schools  stand  in  a  position  of 
honor  before  the  undergraduates  of  the  proudest  univer- 
sity. With  the  school  of  engineering  or  of  technology 
the  case  is  different.  The  professions  for  which  they 
prepare  their  pupils  are  new ;  and  the  exercises  by  which 
the  student  is  trained  in  them  are  still  subject,  in  some 


V2  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

degree,  to  antiquated  and  snobbish  prejudice.  I  have 
no  desire  at  this  time  to  go  over  the  ground  of  mj  con- 
troversy, a  year  ago,  with  Professor  Shaler  of  the  Law- 
rence Scientific  School;^  but  will  content  myself  with 
remarking  that  no  advantages  which  could  possibly  re- 
sult to  a  school  of  engineering  or  technology  from  asso- 
ciation with  a  university — and  those  advantages  need 
not  be  characterized  as  slight — will  compensate  for  the 
disadvantages  of  such  a  union,  if  there  is  to  be  any 
failure  on  the  part  of  the  administrators  and  governors 
of  the  university  profoundly  to  believe  in  the  kind  of 
education  given  in  such  a  school,  thoroughly  to  respect 
the  sort  of  man  who  is  to  study  in  such  a  school  and  the 
sort  of  man  who  is  to  give  the  instruction,  and  in  all 
ways  to  magnify  and  exalt  the  dignity  and  importance  of 
the  professions  for  which  such  a  school  prepares  its 
pupils.  And  again,  if  there  is  to  be  among  the  body  of 
students  at  a  university  any  lack  of  consideration  for 
the  technical  student,  any  disposition  to  look  upon  him 
as  preparing  himself  for  a  work  of  less  dignity  and  im- 
portance than  that  of  the  so-called  learned  professions, 
any  of  that  snobbishness  of  feeling  which  sometimes 
leads  young  men  to  look  upon  the  soiled  fingers  and 
rough  clothes  of  the  laboratory  or  machine  shop  as 
badges  of  social  inferiority,  then  it  is  certain  that  stu- 
dents and  teachers  of  technology  will  be  more  at  ease  by 
themselves,  in  schools  devoted  to  their  own  purposes. 

'  See  The  Technical  School  and  the  University,  p.  37  ante. 


PROFESSIONAL  AND  GENERAL  EDUCATION.        73 

I  have  thus  far  spoken  of  the  relations  of  technical 
and  professional  to  general  education  in  a  series  of 
schools  represented  by  the  academy  or  high  school,  the 
college,  and  the  professional  school.  I  come  now  to  a 
more  difficult  question,  about  which,  as  more  difficult, 
I  shall  have  not  more,  but  less,  to  say:  namely,  what 
shall  be  the  relations  of  technical  and  professional  to 
general  education  in  cases  where  the  college  drops  out 
altogether;  where  young  men  find  themselves  without 
the  time  or  pecuniary  means  to  interpose  any  course  of 
study  between  the  high  school  and  the  professional 
school?  It  is  well  known  that  this  is  the  condition  of 
by  far  the  greater  part  of  those  who  at  any  time  in  this 
country  are  fitting  themselves  for  professional  life. 
And  this  statement  is  equally  true  whether  we  take  all 
classes  of  professional  schools  together  or  take  each  class 
by  itself.  As  I  can  claim  to  know  little  of  schools  of 
law,  medicine,  and  divinity,  I  shall  confine  my  remarks 
to  schools  of  engineering  and  technology. 

When  Mr.  Abbott  Lawrence  made  his  munificent 
gift  for  the  endowment  of  the  Lawrence  Scientific 
School,  it  is  plain  that  the  students  of  that  school  were 
expected  to  be,  in  the  main,  college  graduates  who  had 
received  their  training  and  cultivation  at  Harvard  or 
some  other  of  the  old-fashioned  colleges  of  those  days. 
This  expectation  has  been  altogether  disappointed.  In 
the  last  list  of  the  students  of  the  Lawrence  School  which 
I  have  examined  appear  the  names  of  only  eight  col- 
lege graduates.     The  Sheffield  School  at  Yale  has  sue- 


74  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

ceeded  in  retaining  a  certain  number  of  graduates  from 
its  own  three-years'  course,  and  in  attracting  a  few 
graduates  of  Yale  College  and  of  other  institutions;  but 
its  last  catalogue  shows  the  proportion  of  graduate  stu- 
dents to  be  but  about  seven  per  cent.  Of  recent  years, 
the  proportion  of  graduate  students  at  the  Institute  of 
Technology  has  been  four  or  five  per  cent.,  rising,  the 
present  year,  to  seven.  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  we 
are  to  look  upon  the  schools  of  applied  science  or  tech- 
nology as  having,  by  the  necessity  of  the  case,  to  serve 
their  students  both  as  colleges  of  culture  and  as  profes- 
sional schools;  the  only  alternative  being  that,  if  these 
schools  refuse  the  office  of  promoting  the  mental  devel- 
opment, training,  and  culture  of  their  students,  those 
young  men  must  go  altogether  without  the  advantages 
which  the  college  man  seeks  in  college.  Our  question, 
then,  is:  can  the  school  of  applied  science  or  technology, 
in  any  part, — and  if  so,  in  how  large  a  part, — make  up 
to  the  student  the  loss  of  a  college  course? 

In  the  first  place,  one  may  venture  to  inquire 
whether  the  loss  is,  in  point  of  fact,  as  great  as  might 
at  first  appear.  Conceding  fully  that  college  life  is  a 
very  charming  thing  at  the  time,  and  that  the  recollec- 
tions of  it  and  the  associations  formed  through  it  add 
much  to  the  pleasure  of  subsequent  existence;  conceding 
that  every  parent  would  gladly  secure  for  his  son  this 
privilege  if  his  means  allowed,  are  we  bound  to  state  the 
loss  of  time,  for  all  effective  purposes  of  mental  disci- 
pline and  cultivation,  in  the  case  of  those  who  miss  a  col- 


PROFESSIONAL  AND  GENERAL  EDUCATION       15 

lege  course,  at  full  four  years?  I  should  be  disposed, 
from  my  observation  of  the  average  college  student,  to 
put  the  loss  at  very  much  less  than  this.  But,  whatever 
the  estimate  of  loss,  can  the  school  of  applied  science  and 
technology  afford  the  diligent  student  an  opportunity  to 
make  up  a  part  of  what  he  has  missed  in  not  going  to 
college?  Are  the  necessary  requirements  of  profes- 
sional preparation  such  and  so  great,  that  the  student  of 
one  of  these  schools  must  feel  that  this  part  of  his  edu- 
cation has  been  entirely  sacrificed ;  and  that  he  must  con- 
tent himself  with  a  practical  preparation  for  professional 
success,  accepting  a  certain  and  a  considerable  defi- 
ciency upon  the  side  of  mental  discipline  and  cultiva- 
tion, as  a  part  of  his  lot  in  life? 

To  the  foregoing  question  I  have  no  hesitation,  as  the 
result  of  my  own  observation  and  reflection,  in  giving  a 
negative  answer.  For  all  the  scientific  professions 
which  I  know  anything  about,  the  best  technical  prepa- 
ration is  that  which  will  also  prove  to  be  predominantly 
of  a  truly  educational  character,  expanding  and  enlarg- 
ing the  mind,  disciplining  the  powers,  and  fitting  its  sub- 
ject for  manhood  and  citizenship. 

The  question,  how  far  immediate  professional  success 
is  to  be  weighed  against  ultimate  professional  success, 
has  already  been  decided,  by  our  large  American  experi- 
ence, in  favor  of  a  decided  preference  to  be  given  to  the 
latter.  It  is,  of  course,  an  immense  advantage  to  the 
students  of  technical  schools,  and  to  their  parents  and 
friends,  that  the  young  graduate  is  at  once  able  to  earn 


76  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

his  livelihood.^  In  this  day,  when  social  necessities  are 
so  grinding,  and  when  it  is  so  hard  to  start  a  son  in  life, 
that  advantage  is  not  to  be  neglected.  Yet  there  is 
always  a  wide  field  of  choice  open  to  those  who  control 


•  As  to  the  salaries  received  by  our  graduates  [of  the  Massachusetts 
Institute  of  Technology],  individually  or  as  a  body,  I  have  almost  no 
information.  It  is  a  subject  which  has  never  concerned  me  in  the 
least;  and  I  have  not  even  taken  the  trouble  to  collate  and  preserve 
•whatever  information  has  come  to  me  casually.  I  presume  it  is  with 
the  engineering  profession  and  the  architectural  profession  as  it  is 
with  the  profession  of  lawyer  or  doctor,  namely,  that  there  is  a  cer- 
tain number  who  attain  the  prizes;  and  another  very  much  larger 
number  who  realize  an  immediate  and  comfortable  support;  and  an- 
other, I  should  hope  a  very  much  smaller  number,  who  simply  get 
on.  We  all  know  that  there  are  hosts  of  lawyers  and  doctors  who 
earn  nothing  but  the  barest  living,  even  if  they  pay  their  office  rent. 
I  see  no  reason  why  the  same  should  not  be  true  of  engineers  or 
architects  or  chemists.  If  a  man  will  simply  go  on  surveying,  year 
after  year,  continuing  indefinitely  to  do  what  any  young  man  a  year 
out  of  a  technical  school  can  do  fairly  well,  there  is  no  reason  why 
he  should  receive  a  very  high  salary  for  the  service,  since  the  num- 
ber of  persons  who  would  be  glad  to  do  this  at  a  moderate  compensa- 
tion would  be  very  large.  There  is  no  mystery  or  magic  about  a 
scientific  profession.  Such  an  education  as  we  give  here  enables  a 
man,  after  a  few  years'  experience,  to  take  the  very  highest  positions 
in  the  direction  of  business  and  in  the  conduct  of  industry;  but  a 
man  has  to  do  something  in  this  world  besides  qualify  himself  for 
advanced  positions.  He  has  to  seek  them  and  to  find  them.  He 
must  have  the  tact,  the  savoir  faire,  the  energy,  the  patience,  the 
good  sense  to  make  his  way;  exactly  as  would  be  the  case  with  the 
well-educated  young  lawyer  or  young  doctor.  No  school  makes  a 
man.  All  it  can  do  is  to  take  the  man  as  he  comes  to  it  and  fit  him 
by  training,  by  practice,  and  by  information  imparted,  for  whatever 
duties  he  may  encounter  in  his  professional  life.  The  man  has  still 
to  make  his  own  career.  The  fact  that  he  has  professional  standing 
at  the  start  gives  him  an  advantage  over  the  college-bred  man  in 
getting  a  living  for  the  first  two  or  three  years.  After  that  the  rate 
at  which  he  shall  go  forward  will  depend  entirely  upon  his  capacity, 
energy,  fidelity,  and  tact. — From  a  letter  to  an  intending  student, 
1896. 


PROFESSIONAL  AND  GENERAL  EDUCATION.       77 

technical  schools,  as  to  the  degree  in  which  they  will 
offer  to  their  pupils  studies  and  exercises  the  value  of 
which  will  be  most  fully  realized  in  the  first  few  years 
after  graduation,  or  studies  and  exercises  whose  value 
will  be  increasingly  felt  through  the  whole  course  of 
their  professional  careers,  and  which  will  qualify  them, 
in  larger  and  ever  larger  measure,  for  positions  of  re- 
sponsibility and  trust,  with  advancing  years.  Such 
studies  and  exercises  are  almost  wholly  of  a  nature  to 
afford  mental  discipline  and  culture  in  a  very  high  de- 
gree. It  would  be  strange,  indeed,  if  in  the  infancy  of 
technological  education,  mistakes  had  not  been  made  in 
this  matter,  the  teacher,  in  his  eagerness  to  fit  the  stu- 
dent for  professional  life,  assigning  too  much  value  to 
those  things  which  are  of  immediate  utility.  But  I  feel 
confident,  from  a  careful  study  of  institutions  of  this 
class  in  the  United  States,  that  this  error  has  already 
been  very  largely  apprehended,  in  all  its  seriousness; 
that  among  those  who  administer  technological  educa- 
tion, there  is  a  decided  movement  in  the  direction  of  sub- 
ordinating the  acquisition  of  the  knacks  of  a  trade  and 
mere  technical  devices  to  the  study  of  principles;  and 
that,'  even  in  the  applications  of  principles,  valuable,  and 
invaluable,  as  these  are  in  technological  education,  refer- 
ence is  now  had  rather  to  their  effect  in  giving  a  greater 
mastery  of  the  principles  themselves,  than  to  their  imme- 
diate utility  in  professional  practice.  iN^ay,  more,  I 
confidently  believe  that  even  in  the  study  of  scientific 
principles  themselves,  a  continuously  increasing  regard 


^8  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

"will  be  paid  to  their  influence  in  expanding  the  mind, 
enlarging  the  view,  elevating  the  aims,  and  strengthen- 
ing the  character  of  the  pupil. 

But  we  should  not  trust  alone  to  the  study  of  scientific 
principles  in  a  technological  school  for  making  good  to 
the  pupil  the  loss  of  a  college  education.  There  should 
be  introduced  into  all  technical  courses  no  inconsiderable 
degree  of  purely  philosophical  study.  The  experience, 
during  twenty-nine  years,  of  the  school  with  which  T 
have  the  honor  to  be  connected,  shows  this  to  be  entirely 
feasible.  ]^o  one  has  ever  received  the  degree  of  the 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology  who  has  not,  in 
addition  to  all  scientific  and  technical  studies  and  exer- 
cises, taken  substantial  courses,  extending  through  at 
least  three  years,  not  only  in  modern  languages,  but  also 
in  history,  literature,  and  economics.  Of  course,  under 
the  conditions  existing,  a  large  amount  of  time  cannot 
be  assigned  to  such  studies ;  but  if  they  are  pursued  with 
the  zeal  and  earnestness  which  characterize  the  students 
of  these  schools,  much  can  yet  be  done  in  a  limited 
period.  As  before  remarked,  liberalizing  studies  need 
not  be  followed  out  either  in  a  loose  or  a  leisurely  man- 
ner. With  a  proper  arrangement  of  subjects  and  with 
good  teachers,  it  is  entirely  possible  for  those  who  ad- 
minister the  institutions  of  applied  science  and  tech- 
nology to  give  their  pupils,  in  addition  to  the  studies  and 
exercises  which  will  make  them  resolute,  exact,  and  strong, 
at  least  a  moderate  measure  of  the  studies  and  exer- 
cises which  will  make  them  also  broad  and  high  and  fine. 


TECHNOLOGICAL  AND  TECHNICAL 
EDUCATION 

1896 


An  Address  Delivehbd  at  the  Dedication  op  the 
Clakkbon  Memorial  Schooi,  op  Technology,  Potsdam, 
New  York,  November  30,  1896. 


President  Walker's  last  public  address  upon 
education. 


TECHNOLOGICAL  AND  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION. 

In  reading  recently  the  very  valuable  work  entitled 
Notes  on  North  America,  by  Professor  J.  F.  W.  John- 
ston, of  Scotland,  published  in  1851,  I  came  across  this 
passage:^  "Dr.  Wayland  has  rendered  it  exceedingly 
probable — I  may  say,  has  almost  demonstrated — ^that 
the  cause  of  the  falling  off  in  the  number  of  students  in 
the  New  England  universities  is  not  the  expense  in- 
curred, but  the  inadequacy,  in  kind,  of  the  instruction 
given  in  these  institutions  to  meet  the  more  pressing 
wants  of  a  people  advancing  rapidly  in  all  the  arts  of 
life."  The  interest  which  this  reference  aroused  led 
me  to  search  for  the  writings  of  Dr.  Wayland  to  which 
Professor  Johnston  here  alluded.  In  a  report  to  the 
Corporation  of  Brown  University,  on  "  Changes  in  the 
System  of  Collegiate  Education,"  printed  in  1850,  I 
find  that  distinguished  educator  and  great  master  of 
moral  philosophy  discussing  the  courses  of  study  most 
beneficial  to  the  community  in  a  spirit  so  admirable, 
with  a  freedom  from  prejudice  so  remarkable,  with  a 
breadth  of  comprehension  so  rarely  attained,  that  I  am 
sure  it  will  deeply  interest  you  to  hear  his  words,  even  at 
some  length. 

That  which  prompted  President  Wayland  to  this  in- 
vestigation was  the  very  striking  fact  that — as  you  will 
^  Vol.  I.,  p.  475  (American  edition). — Ed. 
81 


82  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

now  be  surprised  to  hear — ^the  number  of  college  stu- 
dents had  for  a  long  time  not  only  failed  to  keep  pace 
with  the  growth  of  wealth  and  population,  but  had  even 
declined.  Taking  the  twelve  colleges  and  universities 
which  then  formed  the  New  England  system,  Dr.  Way- 
land  found  that,  while  the  average  attendance  for  the 
five-year  period  1840-44  had  been  2063,  the  number 
had  sunk  for  the  period  1845-49  to  2000,  while  for  the 
year  1850  it  was  only  1884.  Yet  during  this  time  there 
had  been  a  great  increase  of  endowments  and  of  annual 
grants  for  reducing  tuition,  and  even  for  making  it  free 
to  many  classes  of  students.  Upon  this  remarkable 
showing  President  Wayland  dwells  with  much  emphasis. 
"  It  would  seem,"  he  says,  "  from  such  facts  as  these, 
that  our  present  system  of  collegiate  education  is  not 
accomplishing  the  purposes  intended.  .  .  Our  colleges 
are  not  filled,  because  we  do  not  furnish  the  education 
desired  by  the  people.  .  .  We  have  produced  an  article 
for  which  the  demand  is  diminishing.  We  sell  it  at  less 
than  cost,  and  the  deficiency  is  made  up  by  charity.  We 
give  it  away;  and  still  the  demand  diminishes." 

Tracing  this  effect  back  to  its  cause.  Dr.  Wayland 
found  in  the  curriculum  of  the  American  colleges  which 
then  existed  a  grave  lack  of  adaptation  to  the  needs  of 
the  community.  "  We  have,"  he  says,  "  in  this  coun- 
try one  hundred  and  twenty  colleges,  forty-two  theo- 
logical seminaries,  and  forty-seven  law  schools,  and  we 
have  not  a  single  institution  designed  to  furnish  the 
agriculturist,  the  manufacturer,  the  mechanic,  or  the 


TECHNOLOGICAL  AND  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION.     83 

merchant  with  the  education  that  will  prepare  him  for 
the  profession  to  which  his  life  is  to  be  devoted." 

This  failure  of  the  educational  institutions  of  the 
country  to  meet  the  real  needs  of  the  people  was  then, 
as  Dr.  Wayland  conceived  it,  becoming  ever  more  and 
more  painfully  felt.  "  With  the  present  century,"  he 
says,  "  a  new  era  dawned  upon  the  world.  A  host  of 
new  sciences  arose,  all  holding  important  relations  to  the 
progress  of  civilization.  Here  was  a  whole  people  in  an 
entirely  novel  position.  Almost  the  whole  nation  was 
able  to  read.  Mind  had  been  quickened  to  intense 
energy  by  the  events  of  the  Revolution.  The  spirit  of 
self-reliance  had  gained  strength  by  the  result  of  that 
contest.  A  country  rich  in  every  form  of  capability  had 
just  come  into  their  possession.  Its  wealth  was  inex- 
haustible, and  its  adaptation  to  the  production  of  most 
of  the  great  staples  of  commerce  unsurpassed.  All  that 
was  needed  in  order  to  develop  its  resources  was  well- 
directed  labor.  But  labor  can  only  be  skillfully  directed 
by  science ;  and  the  sciences  now  coming  into  notice  were 
precisely  those  which  the  condition  of  such  a  country 
rendered  indispensable  to  success. 

"  That  such  a  people  could  be  satisfied  with  the  teach- 
ing of  Greek,  Latin,  and  the  elements  of  mathematics, 
was  plainly  impossible.  Lands  were  to  be  surveyed, 
roads  to  be  constructed,  ships  to  be  built  and  navigated, 
soils  of  every  kind,  and  under  every  variety  of  climate, 
were  to  be  cultivated,  manufactures  were  to  be  estab- 
lished which  must  soon  come  into  competition  with 


84  TECHNOLOQICAL  EDUCATION. 

those  of  more  advanced  nations;  and,  in  a  word,  all  the 
means  which  science  has  provided  to  aid  the  progress  of 
civilization  must  be  employed  if  this  youthful  republic 
would  place  itself  abreast  of  the  empires  of  Europe." 

"  The  moral  conditions  being  equal,"  Dr.  Wayland 
remarks  in  another  place,  "  the  progress  of  a  nation  in 
wealth,  happiness,  and  refinement  is  measured  by  the 
universality  of  its  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  nature  and 
its  skill  in  adapting  these  laws  to  the  purposes  of  man. 
Civilization  is  advancing;  and  it  can  only  advance  in 
the  line  of  the  useful  arts.  It  is,  therefore,  of  the 
greatest  national  importance  to  spread  broadcast  over  the 
community  that  knowledge  by  which  alone  the  useful 
arts  can  be  multiplied  and  perfected.  Every  producer 
who  labors  in  his  art  scientifically  is  the  best  of  all  ex- 
perimenters; and  he  is,  of  all  men,  the  most  likely,  by 
discovery,  to  add  to  our  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  nature. 
He  is,  also,  specially  the  individual  most  likely  to  invent 
the  means  by  which  those  laws  shall  be  subjected  to  the 
service  of  man.  Of  the  truth  of  these  remarks  every- 
one must  be  convinced  who  will  observe  the  success  to 
which  any  artisan  arrives,  who,  fortunately,  by  his  own 
efforts  (for  at  present  he  could  do  it  in  no  other  way), 
has  attained  to  a  knowledge  of  the  principles  which 
govern  the  process  in  which  he  is  employed. 

"  Suppose  that  since  the  Revolution  as  much  capital 
and  talent  had  been  employed  in  diffusing  among  all 
classes  of  society  the  knowledge  of  which  every  class 
stands  in  need,  as  has  been  employed  in  inculcating  the 


TECHNOLOGICAL  AND  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION.     85 

knowledge  needed  in  preparation  for  the  professions,  is 
it  possible  to  estimate  the  benefits  which  would  have 
been  conferred  upon  our  country?  The  untold  millions 
that  have  been  wasted  by  ignorance  would  have  been 
now  actively  employed  in  production.  A  knowledge 
universally  diffused  of  the  laws  of  vegetation  might 
have  doubled  our  annual  agricultural  products.  Prob- 
ably no  country  on  earth  can  boast  of  as  intelligent  a 
class  of  mechanics  and  manufacturers  as  our  own.  Had 
a  knowledge  of  principles  been  generally  diffused  among 
them  we  should  have  already  outstripped  Europe  in  all 
those  arts  which  increase  the  comforts  or  multiply  the 
refinements  of  human  life.  Perhaps  in  the  earlier  his- 
tory of  our  country  such  knowledge  would  not  have  been 
adequately  appreciated.  That  period,  however,  has  now 
passed  away.  An  impulse  has  been  given  to  common- 
school  education  which  cannot  but  render  every  man 
definitely  sensible  of  his  wants,  and  consequently  eager 
to  supply  them.  The  time,  then,  would  seem  to  have 
arrived  when  our  institutions  of  learning  are  called  upon 
to  place  themselves  in  harmony  with  the  advanced  and 
rapidly-advancing  condition  of  society." 

Four  years  later — namely,  in  1854 — ^Dr.  Way  land 
delivered  an  address  at  Union  College,  on  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  the  presidency  of  Eliphalet  Nott,  in 
which  he  took  up  again  the  question  of  the  studies 
which  should  be  pursued  in  colleges,  and  advanced  dis- 
tinctly from  his  position  of  1850.  On  the  former  occa- 
sion the  main  weight  of  his  argument  had  been,  first, 


86  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

that  the  colleges  needed  the  new  subjects  of  study  as  a 
means  of  saving  themselves  from  decline  in  influence 
and  in  numbers;  secondly,  that  the  country  needed  to 
have  the  colleges  take  up  these  subjects,  in  order  that 
its  industries  might  be  prosecuted  and  its  resources  de- 
veloped with  skill  and  scientific  knowledge.  In  the 
Union  College  address  President  Wayland  asserted,  with 
great  emphasis,  his  conviction,  not  only  that  the  new 
subjects  of  study  were,  if  not  of  peculiar  educational 
virtue,  at  the  least  equally  well  entitled  to  be  recognized 
and  respected  as  appropriate  means  for  the  development 
of  mind  and  the  molding  of  character;  but,  also,  that  the 
union  of  the  two  classes  of  subjects  in  our  colleges  was 
essential  to  secure  the  best  effect  of  either,  the  two  sup- 
plementing and  reinforcing  each  other.  Strongly  re- 
pudiating the  traditional  idea  that  there  are  two  kinds  of 
knowledge :  "  one  necessary  for  the  attainment  of  our 
means  of  happiness,  but  incapable  of  nourishing  and 
strengthening  the  soul;  and  the  other  tending  to  self- 
culture,  but  leading  to  no  single  practicable  advantage," 
President  Wayland  advanced  boldly  to  the  position  that 
the  cultivation  of  the  natural  and  physical  sciences,  both 
by  themselves  and  with  direct  reference  to  their  social 
and  industrial  uses,  was  to  be  regarded  as  essential  to  the 
completion  of  the  college  curriculum,  so  that  the  tastes, 
the  aptitudes,  and  the  intellectual  abilities  of  each  pupil 
might  find  the  most  congenial  field  for  study  and  re- 
search. Time  will  not  permit  me  to  quote  from  Dr. 
Wayland's  address  on  this  point     It  is  the  less  impor- 


TECHNOLOGICAL  AND  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION.      87 

tant  because  all  whicli  Dr.  Wayland,  in  defiance  of  tlie 
traditional  opinions  of  the  day,  then  claimed  for  scien- 
tific and  technical  studies  and  exercises,  has  since  been 
fully  conceded,  and  has,  indeed,  furnished  the  reason  for 
sweeping  changes  in  the  curriculum,  and  even  in  the 
entrance  requirements,  of  the  classical  colleges.  When 
we  see  the  oldest  university  of  America  conferring  its 
degree  upon  those  who  have  never  had  an  hour  of  either 
Latin  or  Greek  within  its  walls,  and  even  dropping 
Greek  from  its  list  of  positive  entrance  requirements, 
we  get  a  measure  of  the  enormous  advance  in  educa- 
tional philosophy  which  has  taken  place  since  President 
"Wayland  dared  to  challenge  the  opinion,  then  univer- 
sally held  by  the  teachers  and  governors  of  American 
colleges  and  universities,  that  the  classics  were  absolutely 
essential  to  liberal  culture  and  that  no  one  could  be 
called  a  well-educated  man  without  them. 

Truly  remarkable  as  were  these  words  of  the  illus- 
trious president  of  Brown  University,  in  that  stage  of 
our  industrial  development.  Dr.  "Wayland  was  yet  rather 
a  prophet  than  a  pioneer.  During  the  decade  which  fol- 
lowed, there  occurred  a  considerable  extension  of  studies 
in  science,  especially  in  natural  science,  in  his  own  uni- 
versity and  in  many  of  the  colleges  of  the  traditional 
type;  but  the  creation  of  the  modern  school  of  science 
and  technology  was  yet  to  come.  A  few  purely  tech- 
nical schools  had,  indeed,  been  already  brought  into 
existence.  The  Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute  at 
Troy  had  been  founded  as  early  as  1824,  though  its 


88  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

actual  work  was  for  some  years  delayed.  About  1846- 
47,  the  Scientific  Department  of  Yale  and  tlie  Lawrence 
Scientific  School  of  Harvard  came  into  existence;  and 
the  University  of  Michigan  took  on  an  engineering  de- 
partment. These  were,  however,  as  we  must  now  view 
them,  rather  technical  than  educational  in  their  plan  and 
purpose.  They  aimed  to  give  to  their  small  bodies  of 
students  the  special  training  needed  to  equip  them  for 
practical  work  as  engineers  or  chemists.  They  did  not 
assume  responsibility  for  the  general  education  of  their 
pupils.  They  were  not  colleges,  in  the  sense  in  which 
the  modem  scientific  and  technical  school  is  a  college. 
Even  with  this  limitation,  these  schools  did  a  work, 
though  necessarily  on  a  very  small  scale,  in  the  develop- 
ment of  American  arts  and  industries,  which  deserves 
most  cordial  recognition.  One  cannot  read  the  roll  of 
the  early  graduates  of  the  Rensselaer  Institute,  for 
example,  without  admiration.  But  it  was  reserved  for 
the  period  of  the  great  Civil  War,  and  the  years  imme- 
diately succeeding,  to  witness  the  rapid  development  of 
the  modern  college  of  the  sciences  and  the  useful  arts. 
How  far  this  marvelous  growth  of  institutions  adapted  to 
the  requirements  of  modem  life  was  due  to  the  war 
itself,  working  a  tremendous  incitement  of  the  national 
ideals,  ambitions,  and  aspirations ;  how  far  it  was  due  to 
the  stage  of  industrial  development  which  had  been 
reached  in  the  peaceful  progress  of  the  nation,  it  would 
not  be  profitable  to  speculate.  Certain  it  is  that  our 
people,  in  their  eager  exploitation  of  the  natural  re- 


TECHNOLOQIGAL  AND  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION.     89 

sources  of  the  continent,  had  attained  a  condition  where 
it  became  absolutely  necessary  that  the  enterprises  into 
which  their  labor  and  capital  were  to  be  put  should  be 
organized  and  directed  with  much  more  of  skill  and  of 
scientific  knowledge  than  had  been  applied  to  their  early 
efforts  at  manufacture  and  transportation.  The  larger 
scale  on  which  the  operations  of  trade  and  production 
were  to  be  carried  on,  the  ever-increasing  possibilities  of 
business,  the  rapidly  intensifying  severity  of  competi- 
tion, the  quickening  of  communication,  had  created  an 
urgent  want  for  greater  technical  skill  and  more  highly 
trained  intelligence.  The  old  wasteful  ways  of  dealing 
with  materials,  the  rule-of-thumb  methods  of  construc- 
tion, the  haphazard  administration,  which  characterized 
our  earlier  industrial  efforts,  could  not  have  been  con- 
tinued without  greatly  retarding  the  national  develop- 
ment, if  not  without  irreparable  loss  in  the  result.  In  a 
sense,  and  in  a  high  sense,  the  scientific  and  technical 
school  came  because  the  time  for  it  had  come.  Never- 
theless, it  is  to  be  confessed,  or  rather,  it  is  to  be  grate- 
fully admitted,  that  the  promptness  and  the  fullness  by 
which  these  new  needs  of  the  age  were  met  were  largely 
due  to  remarkable  prescience  and  grasp  of  fundamental 
principles  on  the  part  of  a  few  men,  statesmen,  scholars, 
or  the  enlightened  possessors  of  great  fortunes,  rather 
than  to  popular  appreciation  of  them.  Ever  since  1857, 
Professor  William  Barton  Rogers,  formerly  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Virginia  and  then  of  Boston,  had  been  urging 
upon  the  citizens  and  the  legislators  of  Massachusetts 


90  TECHNOLOQICAL  EDUCATION. 

his  plans  for  the  foundation  of  a  comprehensive  school 
of  science  and  technology.^  On  April  10,  1861,  four 
days  before  the  firing  on  Sumter,  the  Legislature  of 
Massachusetts  gave  effect  to  these  plans  by  the  incor- 
poration of  such  an  institution,  of  which  Dr.  Rogers  be- 
came the  first  president.  In  the  subsequent  develop- 
ment of  this,  the  first  separate  and  complete  college  of 
the  modern  type,  the  plans  of  its  great  founder  were 
carried  out  with  scarcely  an  appreciable  modification. 
Even  to-day,  thirty  years  later,  with  twelve  hundred  stu- 
dents, one  hundred  and  fifty  teachers,  and  a  group  of 
large  buildings  crowded  with  powerful  and  delicate  en- 
ginery, machinery,  and  apparatus,  there  is  scarcely  a 
feature  which  did  not  clearly  appear  in  the  memorial 
that  Dr.  Rogers  addressed  to  the  Massachusetts  Legis- 
lature in  1857.  At  E"ew  Haven,  that  prince  of  public 
benefactors,  Joseph  E.  Sheffield,  in  a  noble  and  enlight- 
ened public  spirit,  provided  the  means  by  which  the 
small  and  feeble  scientific  department  of  Yale  became 
the  important,  and, — though  nominally  attached  to  the 
University, — the  substantially  distinct  and  independent 
college  of  science  which  will  bear  the  name  of  its 
founder  down  to  remotest  ages.  Congress,  too,  under 
the  leadership  of  Senator  Morrill,  of  Vermont,  by  an  Act 
of  the  year  1862,  made  liberal  grants  of  public  lands 
for  the  endowment,  in  each  state  and  territory,  of  at 
least  one  college,  which,  though,  in  the  public  estima- 
tion at  least,  primarily  intended  for  the  encouragement 
'  See  Life  and  Letters  of  WiUiam  Barton  Rogers  ;  2  v.,  Boston,  1897. 


TECHNOLOGICAL  AND  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION.     91 

of  agriculture,  was  yet  to  be  charged  with  the  develop- 
ment of  the  mechanic  arts.  Subsequent  Acts  of  Con- 
gress have  provided  for  still  further  grants  to  the  col- 
leges established  under  the  Act  of  1862  and  for  the 
endowment  of  agricultural  experiment  stations. 

It  is  not  needful  to  tell  here  the  story  of  the  rapid  de- 
velopment of  the  modem  college  in  America.  To-day 
more  than  one  hundred  institutions,  separate  colleges  or 
departments  of  universities,  are  offering  the  instruc- 
tion in  applied  science  which,  less  than  forty  years 
ago,  was  given,  upon  a  small  scale,  in  the  few  schools 
or  departments  of  universities  that  I  have  named. 
The  students  of  these  schools,  even  their  yearly 
graduates,  are  numbered  by  the  thousand.  What 
the  new  colleges  have  done  for  the  arts  and  indus- 
tries of  the  United  States  time  will  fail  to  tell. 
Not  a  branch  of  industry,  not  a  transportation  line 
in  all  the  land,  but  has  profited  by  the  work  of  in- 
struction and  investigation  carried  on  in  them.  There 
are  to-day  large  manufactories  whose  entire  profit  is  de- 
rived from  a  single  one  of  the  waste  products  which  for- 
merly found  their  way  down  the  canals  into  the  river,  or 
were  thrown  unregarded  into  useless  heaps  behind  the 
works.  It  is  not  extravagant  to  say  that  much  of  the 
industrial  history  of  our  time  would  never  have  been 
written  but  for  the  schools  of  applied  science,  because 
the  things  we  are  now  proud  to  record  would  then  not 
have  taken  place. 

It  is  not,  however,  of  the  industrial  and  strictly  tech- 


92  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

nical,  but  of  the  proper  educational  work  of  these  insti- 
tutions that  I  desire  to  speak  at  this  time.  The  modem 
schools  of  science  and  technology  differ  from  the  few 
which  antedated  the  war  in  that,  speaking  generally, 
they  assume  responsibility  for  the  intellectual  develop- 
ment of  their  pupils,  using  the  technical  applications  of 
science,  not  merely,  or  even  mainly,  with  reference  to 
their  subsequent  industrial  uses,  but  with  reference  to 
their  effect  in  the  training  of  mind  and  in  the  molding 
of  character.  It  is  unquestionably  true  that  some  of 
these  institutions,  in  their  zeal  for  results  immediately 
useful,  at  first  made  their  courses  too  narrow  and  neg- 
lected those  liberal  studies  and  exercises  which  are 
essential  to  any  complete  and  harmonious  scheme  of  edu- 
cation. In  instances,  this  error  has  already  been  cor- 
rected; and  the  tendency  is  now  in  the  direction  of  put- 
ting these  institutions  in  line  with  the  best  results  of 
pedagogical  thinking  and  experience.  I  do  not  hesitate 
to  say  that  the  product  of  these  schools,  in  mind  and 
manhood,  in  intellect  and  character,  is  not  a  whit  in- 
ferior, in  essential  worth,  to  that  of  the  traditional  col- 
leges. Altogether,  in  addition  to  what  may  be  claimed 
for  these  institutions  in  the  way  of  promoting  the 
industrial  development  of  the  nation,  we  may  safely 
assert  that  they  have  come  to  form  a  most  important 
part  of  the  proper  educational  system  of  the  country; 
that  they  are  doing  a  work  in  the  intellectual  and  moral 
development  of  our  people,  and  are  making  a  contribu- 
tion to  the  manhood  and  citizenship  of  the  country  which 


TECHNOLOGICAL  AND  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION.     93 

is  not  surpassed,  if  indeed  it  be  equaled,  by  that  of  the 
classical  colleges.  [Here  follows  substantially  what 
appears  in  the  address  on  The  Bise  and  Importance  of 
Applied  Science  in  American  Education,  p.  21  et  seq., 
ante.^ 

During  the  past  few  years  the  older  colleges  have,  in- 
deed, been  enriching  and  diversifying  their  curriculums 
by  the  introduction  and  extension  of  science  study,  at 
the  expense  of  exercises  which  they  once  declared  abso- 
lutely essential  to  a  liberal  education;  but  we  still  hold 
that  in  the  technical  applications  of  the  sciences  the 
new  colleges  have  an  agency  and  instrumentality  of 
special  educational  efficiency.  The  earnestness  of  study, 
the  directness  and  continuity  of  attention,  the  zeal  and 
enthusiasm  of  work,  which  arise  from  the  immediate 
contemplation  and  pursuit  of  useful  arts,  do  not  merely 
secure  a  more  perfect  mastery  of  the  principles  of 
science;  they  of  themselves  constitute  an  educational 
force  which  every  teacher  in  such  a  school  recognizes 
with  delight,  but  which,  in  colleges  of  the  old  type,  gen- 
erally characterizes  only  the  gifted  scholar.  To  the 
sincerity  of  purpose  and  the  intellectual  honesty  which 
are  bred  in  the  laboratory  of  chemistry,  physics,  and 
mechanics,  in  marked  contrast  to  the  dangerous  tenden- 
cies to  plausibility,  sophistry,  and  self-delusion  which 
insidiously  beset  the  pursuit  of  philosophy,  dialectics, 
and  rhetoric,  is  added,  in  the  school  of  technology,  a 
strong  and  almost  overpowering  impulse  toward  study 
and  research,  which  has  already,  in  spite  of  traditional 


94  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

prejudices,  caused  these  institutions  to  be  recognized  as 
of  the  highest  educational  character  by  many  of  the  best 
thinkers  and  teachers  of  our  land. 

Such  was  the  origin  of  the  modem  school  of  science 
and  technology  in  the  United  States.  In  his  most  radi- 
cal mood,  President  Wayland  contemplated  no  such 
development.  Indeed,  it  was  of  the  essence  of  his  argu- 
ment that  the  work  he  proposed  should  be  done  by  exist- 
ing colleges  of  the  traditional  type.  One  of  his  pleas  for 
the  prompt  acceptance  of  this  mission  was  that,  other- 
wise, institutions  would  come  into  being  to  do  the  work 
which  the  colleges  declined,  thus,  according  to  his  prog- 
nostication, increasing  the  competition  for  students,  al- 
ready too  severe,  and  still  further  subdividing  the  body 
of  possible  scholars.  In  the  report  from  which  I  have 
quoted.  President  Wayland  particularly  referred  to  in- 
cipient movements,  both  in  Massachusetts  and  in  New 
York,  for  the  establishment  of  agiicultural  colleges.  It 
was  this  which  he  desired  to  see  the  existing  colleges 
head  off  by  enlarging,  enriching,  and  diversifying  their 
curriculum,  so  as  to  provide  for  the  many  and  varied 
needs  of  modem  life. 

We  may  hold  that  the  separate  and  distinct  schools  of 
science  and  technology  were  brought  into  existence  by 
the  tardiness  and  reluctance  of  the  teachers  and  gov- 
ernors of  the  old-fashioned  colleges,  in  modifying  their 
courses  of  study  to  suit  the  conditions  of  the  age ;  or  that 
it  was  in  the  nature  of  the  case  that  this  should  come 
about,  and  that,  no  matter  how  promptly  and  how  libera 


TECHNOLOGICAL  AND  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION.     95 

ally  the  colleges  might  have  introduced,  between  1850 
and  1860,  the  sciences  into  their  curriculum,  or  how  ear- 
nestly and  intelligently  they  might  have  sought  to  adapt 
their  instruction  to  the  wants  of  the  time,  the  new  col- 
leges would  still  have  come  into  being.  In  either  case 
we  have  to  note  the  striking  and  significant  fact  that  the 
anticipated  effect  which  President  Wayland  so  much 
deprecated,  of  still  further  increasing  a  competition 
already  too  severe,  and  still  further  dividing  up  a  pa- 
tronage already  too  small,  has  not  followed.  On  the 
contrary,  while  the  new  schools  and  institutions  have 
exhibited  a  wonderful  growth,  and  have  done  an  edu- 
cational work  which,  alike  as  to  quantity  and  quality, 
has  been  most  remarkable,  the  older  colleges  have  not 
suffered  in  the  least  from  their  competition.  Adapting 
themselves  to  the  changed  conditions,  relaxing  much  of 
the  severity  with  which  certain  particular  studies  were 
once  insisted  upon  as  of  the  very  essentials  of  a  liberal 
education,  freely  introducing  courses  in  pure  science, 
they  have  not  only  much  more  than  held  their  own  in 
numbers,  during  the  past  thirty  years,  but  have  largely 
increased  both  the  range  of  their  work  and  the  degree  of 
their  educational  efficiency. 

Such  a  result,  though  paradoxical,  contains  no  deep 
mystery.  Profound  and  sagacious  as  President  Way- 
land  was,  his  anxiety  lest  a  new  type  of  school  should 
arise  to  diminish  the  attendance  upon  the  existing  col- 
leges shows  that  there  was  at  least  one  law  of  social  and 
industrial   economy   which   he  had   not   apprehended. 


96  TECHNOLOOICAL  EDUCATION. 

What  needs  to  be  said  is,  not  that  the  new  colleges  failed 
to  cut  into  the  patronage  of  the  older  institutions,  as 
something  which  it  was  reasonably  to  be  expected  they 
would  do;  but  that  the  appearance  of  the  new  type  of 
schools,  appealing  to  new  interests,  using  new  methods, 
applying  themselves  to  objects  not  before  considered,  so 
stimulated  and  strengthened  the  total  educational  im- 
pulse throughout  the  country  as  not  only  to  secure  for 
themselves  an  ample  support  and  patronage,  but  also  to 
give  fresh  life  and  activity  to  the  older  colleges,  which 
had  sunk  into  routine,  tradition,  and  imitation.  I  will 
not  say  that  the  men  who  founded  the  new  colleges  saved 
the  old — that  might  be  claiming  too  much;  but  I  believe 
that  no  student  of  American  education  will  question 
that  the  new  colleges  had  an  immense  influence  in 
quickening  the  life  of  the  old  and  in  promoting  the 
searching  reforms  from  within  which  render  them  to- 
day so  much  more  active  and  efficient  than  in  any  pre- 
vious stage  of  their  existence. 

In  social  and  industrial  economy  there  is  no  greater 
fallacy  than  that  of  a  predetermined  dividend.  As  an 
economist,  I  have  all  my  life  been  fighting  it  in  the  de- 
partment of  labor  and  wages.  Here,  in  the  educational 
history  of  the  past  fifty  years,  we  get  another  striking 
view  of  the  fallacy  of  this  notion.  It  is  ordinarily  said 
that  demand  creates  supply;  and  this  is  true  throughout 
the  lower  ranges  of  life.  In  the  matter  of  food  and  fuel 
and  clothing,  and,  indeed,  in  regard  to  all  things  where 
human  wants  have  become  fixed  and  settled,  we  have  no 


TECHNOLOGICAL  AND  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION.      97 

occasion  to  worry  ourselves  about  the  supply.  Demand 
will  take  care  of  that.  Civilization  may  be  trusted  to 
hold  on  to  whatever  advances  it  has  once  fully  and  fairly 
made,  whether  in  material  or  in  other  directions.  The 
conscious  wants  of  humanity  will  suffice  to  secure  the  due 
supply  without  any  organized  public  or  private  effort 
other  than  that  originating  in  personal  interest.  But  in 
all  things  high  and  fine,  and  generally,  also,  in  every  ad- 
vance which  material  civilization  is  to  make,  there  must 
be  a  better  intelligence  than  that  of  the  market,  which 
shall  apprehend  not  what  men  want,  but  what  they 
ought  to  want.  There  must  be  disinterested  efforts  on 
the  part  of  the  natural  leaders  of  society  which  shall 
secure,  at  whatever  sacrifice,  such  a  demonstration  of  the 
merits  and  advantages  of  the  yet  unknown  thing,  such  a 
supply  of  the  new  good,  as  shall  create  the  demand  for  it. 
It  will  not  be  until  that  want  has  been  fairly  and  fully 
wrought  into  the  public  consciousness,  that  the  supply 
may  thereafter  be  left  to  take  care  of  itself.  The 
American  schools  of  science  and  technology  illustrate  in 
an  eminent  degree  the  law  of  human  progress  which  has 
just  been  stated.  They  themselves  came  into  existence, 
not  in  obedience  to  a  conscious  popular  demand  for 
them,  but  by  reason  of  the  foresight,  the  unselfish  devo- 
tion, and  the  strenuous  self-sacrificing  endeavors  of  a 
few  men  who  were  in  advance  of  their  times;  and,  hav- 
ing thus  come  into  existence,  they  have,  through  their 
whole  course,  freely  illustrated  the  principle  that,  in 
certain  classes  of  things,  supply  must  create  demand.     It 


98  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

was  by  the  graduation  from  colleges  of  science  and 
technology  of  men  thoroughly  prepared  to  do  the  work 
in  chemistry,  physics,  mechanics,  and  engineering, 
which  the  country  needed  to  have  done,  that  the  coun- 
try came  to  be  conscious  of  that  need.  We  have  to-day 
thousands  of  chemists,  electricians,  mechanicians,  and 
engineers  engaged  in  developing  the  marvelous  natural 
resources  of  our  country  and  in  carrying  on  its  giant  in- 
dustries. Not  because  there  was,  thirty,  twenty,  or  ten 
years  ago,  any  such  conscious  demand  for  those  services 
as  would  have  justified  so  many  young  men  in  preparing 
themselves  for  that  work,  but  because  the  schools  of 
science  and  technology  began  to  send  out,  first,  scores; 
then,  hundreds;  and  afterwards,  thousands  of  well  edu- 
cated and  thoroughly  trained  young  men,  who,  finding 
their  way — it  might  even  be  said  forcing  their  way — 
into  employment  here,  there,  and  anywhere,  at  what- 
ever scale  of  initial  compensation,  in  whatever  capacity, 
— sometimes,  in  the  beginning,  doing  the  work  of  day 
laborers, — demonstrated  to  reluctant  and  prejudiced 
minds  their  capability  of  usefulness.  In  this  case  as  in 
so  many  others,  demand  has  been  created  by  first  fur- 
nishing the  supply,  by  showing  what  young  men  prop- 
erly educated  and  highly  trained  can  do  in  organizing 
and  directing  the  forces  of  American  industry. 

So  great  a  change,  as  has  thus  been  traced,  among  the 
higher  institutions  of  learning  in  the  United  States  could 
not  take  place  without  producing  very  marked  effects 
upon  the  scheme  of  secondary  education,  and  even  upon 


TECHNOLOGICAL  AND  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION.     99 

the  courses  of  tlie  grammar  school.  The  usefulness  of 
the  college  of  science  and  technology,  both  from  the 
practical  and  from  the  educational  point  of  view,  has 
passed  beyond  dispute.  Not  only  its  own  work,  but  the 
large  concessions  in  the  direction  of  scientific  study 
which  are  so  rapidly  being  made  by  the  classical  col- 
leges, render  it  impossible  for  any  responsible  person  to 
denounce,  or  even  to  deprecate,  the  movement  which  has 
been  in  such  rapid  progress  during  the  past  thirty  years, 
though  criticism  of  general  methods  and  of  special  exer- 
cises will  long  be  appropriate  and  welcome.  But  the 
work  of  modernizing  the  secondary  school,  so  that  it 
shall  more  closely  meet  present  needs,  has  yet  to  be  ac- 
complished. Much  has  already  been  done;  but  nearly 
all  that  has  been  done  remains  tentative,  both  in  theory 
and  in  practice.  The  subject  remains  to  be  thought  out 
and  wrought  out;  more,  perhaps,  to  be  wrought  out,  by 
trial  and  experiment,  than  to  be  thought  out. 

One  thing,  at  least,  I  think  we  may  say.  The  so- 
called  mechanic  arts  high  school,  whether  supported 
by  the  city  or  maintained  by  private  endowment,  has 
already  assumed,  in  some  degree,  its  definite  shape. 
Doubtless  there  will  be  changes  in  its  curriculum.  The 
proportions  in  which  shopwork,  drawing,  and  geometry 
shall  be  joined,  in  the  scheme  of  instruction,  with  gram- 
mar, history,  the  modern  languages,  and  geography, 
have  as  yet  been  only  rudely  determined;  while  within 
each  of  the  newer  courses  of  study  a  great  deal  has  to 
be  learned  regarding  the  most  effective  methods  to  be 


100  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

employed.  But  enough  has  abeady  been  shown  fully 
to  convince  my  own.  mind  that  this  addition  to  the 
American  system  of  education  is  to  be  a  permanent  and 
important  one.  Moreover,  I  feel  confident  that  we 
shall  witness  here  another  exemplification  of  the  prin- 
ciple which  was  noted  in  regard  to  the  effect  upon  the 
attendance  of  the  older  colleges  produced  by  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  newer.  I  believe  it  will  appear  that  the 
mechanic  arts  high  schools  do  not,  in  the  large  result, 
take  at  all  from  the  existing  classical  and  English  high 
schools.  On  the  contrary,  I  hope  to  see  the  new  schools 
not  only  create  a  constituency  of  their  own,  but  even 
communicate  an  impulse  throughout  the  whole  high 
school  system  not  unlike  that  communicated  to  the  whole 
college  system  by  the  colleges  of  science  and  technology. 
If  this  result  shall  be  attained  it  will  be  most  fortunate. 
The  present  condition  of  things,  where  in  some  com- 
munities not  more  than  ten,  and  in  other  communities 
not  more  than  five,  per  cent,  of  the  pupils  of  the  gram- 
mar schools  go  forward  into  the  secondary  schools,  is  not 
one  to  be  viewed  with  complacency.  It  certainly  seems 
as  if  the  high  schools  had  fallen  out  of  an  intimate  adap- 
tation to  the  wants  of  modem  life,  into  the  stage  of 
routine,  tradition,  and  imitation,  as  did  the  colleges  of 
the  United  States  before  the  period  to  which  President 
"Wayland's  report  related.  I  cannot  but  cherish  the 
hope  that  not  only  will  the  mechanic  arts  high  schools 
gather  within  their  walls  tens  of  thousands  of  youth 
whose  parents  would  otherwise  have  taken  them  out  of 


TECHNOLOOIGAL  AND   TECHNICAL  EDUCATION.     101 

school,  at  fourteen  years  of  age,  to  begin  their  work  in 
life  without  any  adequate  training  or  equipment,  but 
that  the  very  establishment  of  these  schools  will  have  an 
effect  largely  to  increase  the  attendance  upon  the  tradi- 
tional high  school.  That  the  study  of  chemistry  and 
physics  will  more  and  more  extend  through  the  sev- 
eral years  of  the  high  school,  whether  the  Latin  school, 
or  the  English  high  school,  or  the  mechanic  arts  high 
school,  I  regard  as  certain.  In  addition  to  the  remark- 
able virtue  which  these  studies  possess  from  a  purely 
educational  point  of  view,  in  addition  to  all  the  advan- 
tages which  attend  their  pursuit  with  reference  to  higher 
work,  whether  in  science  or  in  technology,  there  is  one 
important  consideration  which  favors  their  adoption  as 
no  inconsiderable  part  of  the  curriculum  of  all  secondary 
schools.  This  consideration  lies  in  the  fact  that,  peda- 
gogically  speaking,  elementary  chemistry  and  elemen- 
tary physics  are,  perhaps,  the  two  subjects  which  are  most 
easily  taught;  which,  with  moderate  attention  and 
fidelity,  are  best  taught,  even  though  the  teacher  be  not 
gifted. 

In  a  certain  sense  and  to  a  considerable  degree  they 
teach  themselves.  I  am  not  unmindful  of  the  great 
differences  which  exist  in  the  progress  of  the  youthful 
pupil  in  chemistry  or  physics,  according  as  his  teacher  is 
one  who  possesses  natural  and  acquired  gifts  of  instruc- 
tion, or  is  one  whose  chief  qualification  is  that  he,  him- 
self, knows  his  subject  well.  But  I  still  hold  to  the 
opinion  that  of  all  the  subjects  of  instruction  known  to 


102  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

the  high  school  curriculum,  these  are  the  two  which  are 
least  dependent  upon  rare  powers  of  instruction  in  the 
teacher.  Compare  them,  in  this  respect,  with  Latin,  or 
Greek,  or  history,  or  even,  I  may  say,  with  geography. 
It  may  not  be  flattering  to  the  teaching  profession  to 
give  prominence  to  such  a  consideration;  but  we  are 
bound  to  recognize  the  fact  that,  with  a  very  large  ma- 
jority of  the  members  of  that  profession,  as  they  are  at 
present  educated,  equipped,  and  called  into  service,  the 
main  qualification  which  we  see  in  them  is  that  they 
fairly  well  understand  the  subjects  they  are  to  teach  and 
are  earnestly  desirous  of  doing  justice  to  their  pupils. 
In  such  a  situation  it  is  no  small  advantage  that  in  so 
large  a  degree  chemistry  and  physics  do  their  own  teach- 
ing, drawing  pupils  on,  naturally  and  almost  irresistibly, 
from  experiment  to  experiment,  from  one  stage  of  at- 
tainment to  another. 

The  problem  of  introducing  science  studies  and  prac- 
tical exercises  into  the  grammar  schools  is  far  more  diffi- 
cult. It  is  a  matter  in  respect  to  which  we  have  made 
very  little  progress  during  the  past  ten  or  fifteen  years, 
although  much  thought  and  attention  have  been  given 
to  the  subject  by  some  of  the  most  accomplished  educa- 
tors of  our  country.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  deal  with 
the  question  of  methods  at  this  time.  The  subject  is  too 
large  and  complicated.  Nor  do  I  feel  myself  qualified 
to  offer  suggestions  of  value  toward  the  solution  of  the 
problem.  I  shall  confine  myself  to  presenting  the  con- 
siderations which  draw  my  own  mind  to  the  conclusion 


TECHNOLOOIGAL  AND   TECHNICAL  EDUCATION.     103 

that  an  extensive  introduction  of  the  objective  study  of 
concrete  things  and  of  hand  and  tool  work  of  one  kind 
or  another,  into  all  the  grades  of  the  grammar  school, 
is  of  great  importance,  both  for  the  fullest  and  happiest 
development  of  the  powers  of  the  pupils  and  for  the 
best  social  and  industrial  results  in  their  after-life. 

[President  Walker  then  proceeds  to  develop  these 
considerations  upon  lines  similar  to  those  followed  in 
the  address  upon  Industrial  Education.  See  pp.  141 
to  145  infra.'] 

I  have  hurriedly  reviewed  the  several  grades  of 
schools  as  they  are  generally  organized  under  our  Ameri- 
can system  of  education — the  college,  the  high  school, 
and  the  grammar  school.  But  the  present  occasion  calls 
sharply  to  our  attention  the  coming  into  existence,  dur- 
ing the  past  few  years,  of  a  new  type  of  school,  which  is 
out  of  the  ordinary  line  of  ascent;  which  does  not  con- 
fine itself  to  a  definite  place  in  the  educational  order,  but 
seeks  objects  of  its  own,  and  is  at  liberty  to  use  all  the 
agencies,  instrumentalities,  and  methods  which  are  ap- 
propriate thereto.  The  schools  referred  to  are  as  yet 
few  in  number  and  are  still  in  the  experimental  stage; 
but  every  believer  in  the  new  education  must  regard 
their  establishment  with  great  satisfaction,  looking  to 
them,  not  only  for  much  positive  good  in  the  education 
and  life  preparation  of  their  own  pupils,  but  also  for 
much  that  will  be  valuable  in  the  way  of  suggestion, 
both  as  to  subjects  of  study  and  as  to  the  most  effective 
methods  of  presenting  such  subjects. 


104  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

As  examples  of  these  new  institutions  may  be  cited 
the  Pratt  Institute  of  Brooklyn,  the  Drexel  Institute  of 
Philadelphia,  and  that  whose  foundation  we  celebrate 
to-day.  Each  of  these  is  the  result  of  munificent  bene- 
factions on  the  part  of  wealthy  individuals  seeking  the 
public  good.  Each  comes  into  the  field  with  a  "  free 
hand,"  bound  by  no  traditions;  perfectly  at  liberty  to 
seek  the  best,  from  whatever  source;  to  prove  all  things 
and  to  hold  fast  to  that  which  is  found  good;  ready, 
eager,  and  anxious  to  occupy  every  part  of  the  ground 
which  has  been  overlooked  or  neglected  in  the  existing 
system  of  instruction,  and  to  meet  every  educational 
want  which  has  been  left  unsatisfied.  These  schools 
call  themselves  neither  preparatory  schools,  nor  high 
schools,  nor  colleges.  They  recognize  no  responsibility 
to  the  established  order.  They  purpose  to  make  them- 
selves; not  to  be  fitted  into  a  place  in  a  system.  It  fol- 
lows from  this  that  much  of  their  work  is  at  present  ex- 
perimental; that  their  schemes  are  large  and  somewhat 
vague;  and  that  their  ultimate  form  is  not  easy  to  con- 
jecture. Herein  is  one  of  the  chief  reasons  for  the  hope 
of  their  future  usefulness.  Every  friend  of  education 
must  watch  their  course  with  interest,  and  study  their 
programmes  and  their  catalogues  to  see  from  time  to 
time  what  they  shall  undertake  and  what  they  shall 
drop;  in  which  direction  they  shall  grow  and  in  which 
other  directions  they  shall,  if  not  decline,  at  least  not 
progress  or  not  progress  rapidly. 

The  advantages  which  I  am  sanguine  enough  to  an- 


TECHNOLOGICAL  AND   TECHNICAL  EDUCATION.     105 

ticipate  from  the  establiskment  of  schools  of  the  new 
type  are  three : 

First,  as  the  result  of  their  freedom  from  obligation  to 
the  general  system  of  education,  they  not  only  will  be 
at  liberty,  but  they  will  be  strongly  impelled  to  search 
out  those  real  needs  of  the  American  people  in  the  mat- 
ter of  education  which  are  at  present  unsupplied.  "We 
must  not  presume  that  such  needs,  even  of  the  most  im- 
perative character,  may  not  exist.  The  long  paragraphs 
from  the  report  of  Dr.  Wayland,  in  1850,  strikingly 
show  how  far  a  system  of  public  instruction,  long  estab- 
lished, highly  appreciated,  even  venerated  and  regarded 
as  above  criticism,  may  be  grossly  inadequate  to  the  de- 
mands of  a  given  time.  In  the  present  stage  of  social 
and  industrial  change,  change  almost  bewildering  in  the 
rapidity  of  its  movement  and  in  the  extent  of  the  fields 
over  which  it  is  taking  place,  it  is  most  reasonable  to  be- 
lieve that  great  gaps  exist  between  the  public  needs  and 
the  accomplished  or  even  attempted  supply  of  those 
needs  by  the  existing  institutions  of  learning,  even  in- 
cluding the  schools  of  science  and  technology,  as  devel- 
oped during  the  past  thirty  years.  If  such  be  the  case, 
and  it  would  be  most  unreasonable  to  deny  that  it  is 
highly  probable,  the  "  free  hand "  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  in  connection  with  the  schools  of  the  type  we  are 
considering,  must  be  an  important  condition  of  success- 
ful effort  to  supplement  the  American  system  of  in- 
struction. To  "  cut  and  fit  and  try  on  "  is  their  special 
mission;  and  no  one  who  takes  this  view  of  the  subject 


106  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

can  fail  to  regard  it  as  most  undesirable  that  the  gov- 
ernors and  teachers  of  these  schools  should  allow  them 
to  be  early  crystallized  into  definite  forms.  It  is  essen- 
tial to  this  function,  as  I  conceive  it,  that  they  should 
remain  largely  in  a  state  of  flux;  open  to  all  impressions; 
mobile  under  all  influences;  not  too  soon  assuming  that 
they  have  found  their  ultimate  resting  place  and  have 
taken  on  their  distinctive  character. 

Secondly,  it  seems  to  me  reasonable  that  we  should 
look  to  the  schools  of  the  new  type  for  continuous  ex- 
perimentation in  regard  to  specific  courses  of  instruc- 
tion and  technical  means  and  methods  of  teaching,  the 
benefit  of  which  shall  be  chiefly  acquired  by  other  insti- 
tutions. The  same  "  free  hand  "  which  enables  these 
schools  to  take  up  any  line  of  work  which  seems  at 
present  to  be  inadequately  performed,  to  enter  any  field 
which  appears  not  to  be  covered  by  existing  agencies, 
will  enable  them  to  exercise  the  largest  liberty  and 
activity  in  developing  the  details  of  each  and  every  sub- 
ject to  which  they  may  apply  themselves.  It  scarcely 
needs  to  be  said  that  such  freedom  brings  with  it  peculiar 
dangers.  A  school  which  belongs  to  a  system  and  is 
fitted  into  a  place;  which,  at  the  one  end,  takes  its  pupils 
from  lower  schools,  and  at  the  other  delivers  its  gradu- 
ates to  higher  institutions,  subject  to  their  examination 
and  criticism,  cannot  go  far  or  rapidly  astray.  But  a 
school  which  has  entire  liberty  to  choose  its  own  field  of 
work  and  to  adapt  its  own  methods,  to  cut  and  fit  and 
try  on,  must  depend  upon  its  own  boards  of  instruction 


TECHNOLOGICAL  AND  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION.     107 

and  management  properly  to  temper  enterprise,  courage, 
and  intellectual  curiosity  with  wholesome  conservatism 
and  sound  practical  sense. 

Thirdly,  the  last  special  advantage  which  I  will  indi- 
cate,— though  doubtless  there  are  others, — as  reasonably 
to  be  expected  from  the  establishment  of  schools  of  the 
new  type,  is  the  training  of  teachers  to  conduct  the  prac- 
tical studies  and  exercises  so  rapidly  making  their  way 
into  the  secondary  schools  of  our  land,  and  which  may 
be  expected  soon  to  be  introduced  into  our  superior 
grammar  schools.  I  am  not  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  a 
few  of  the  traditional  normal  schools  of  our  country 
have  shown  great  liberality  and  much  intelligence  in 
undertaking  to  prepare  their  pupils  to  give  instruction 
in  these  branches.  I  recognize  the  excellent  work  of 
the  New  York  liI"ormal  School  in  undertaking  to  prepare 
teachers  of  the  domestic  and  the  mechanic  arts  for  the 
public  schools.  But  all  that  can  be  done  in  this  direc- 
tion will  not  be  too  much.  Indeed,  the  extension  of  the 
new  subjects  of  instruction  has,  from  the  first,  been 
greatly  hampered  by  the  lack  of  competent  instructors. 
Moreover,  I  cannot  but  think  that  from  schools  of  this 
type  will  go  forth  many  teachers  better  prepared  to  con- 
tribute to  the  development  of  the  theory  and  practice  of 
the  new  profession  than  the  graduates  of  the  traditional 
normal  school  with  a  little  of  the  mechanic  arts  added, 
or  even  than  the  graduates  of  a  normal  school  specific- 
ally and  solely  directed  to  the  training  of  teachers  for 
that  work. 


108  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

With  these  words  I  close  this  already  too  long  pro- 
tracted address.  I  congratulate  the  citizens  of  Potsdam 
that  their  home  has  been  made  the  seat  of  an  institu- 
tion of  this  character,  established  bj  the  munificence  of 
three  noble  women  who  recognize  the  obligation  which 
wealth  imposes,  and  whose  eyes  have  been  anointed  to 
see  that  the  best  thing  about  money  is  its  power  of  doing 
good  to  others.  I  congratulate  the  governors  and 
teachers  of  this  Institute  upon  the  opportunities  which 
have  been  opened  to  them  to  make  a  special  and  impor- 
tant contribution,  not  only  to  the  welfare  of  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  future  pupils  of  their  own,  but  to  the 
philosophy  of  education  throughout  our  land.  Just  as 
the  early  schools  of  technology  gave  to  the  classical  col- 
leges the  laboratory  of  general  physics  and  the  labora- 
tory of  general  chemistry,  now  regarded  as  essential  and 
even  indispensable  in  every  school  of  liberal  learning,  so 
here  at  Potsdam  may  be  developed  and  wrought  out 
agents  and  instrumentalities  of  instruction,  courses  of 
study,  methods  of  teaching,  which  in  another  generation 
shall  be  applied  to  the  training  of  millions  of  American 
youth. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  ''ENGLISH"  IN 
SCHOOLS  OF  TECHNOLOGY 


I.  An  Extract  prom  thb  Rbport  op  the  Prbsident 
OP  the  Massachusetts  Institute  op  Technology  for 
THE  Year  1890. 

II.  A  Communication  to  the  Department  op  English 

OF  THE  MASBACHUBBTTS  INSTITUTE  OP  TECHNOLOGY. 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  "ENGLISH"  IN  SCHOOLS  OF 
TECHNOLOGY. 

I. 

The  problem  of  giving  instruction  in  English,  to  the 
hest  effect,  to  students  of  scientific  and  technical  schools, 
is  a  very  interesting  one.  The  teacher  who  shall  solve 
it  will  make  a  contribution  to  the  philosophy  of  educa- 
tion which  will  be  of  great  value,  inasmuch  as  the  num- 
ber of  these  schools  is  large,  and  is  rapidly  increasing. 
The  instruction  given  in  English  in  the  classical  colleges 
is,  by  general  admission,  very  unsatisfactory;  but,  at 
least,  it  stands  related  to  the  fact  that  the  pupils  have  a 
comparatively  large  vocabulary,  derived  from  long- 
continued  work  in  language;  that  they  have  made  a 
special  study  of  etymology;  that  they  have  become  fa- 
miliar with  the  figures  of  rhetoric  through  the  Latin  and 
the  Greek,  and  that  they  have  for  years  been  exercised 
upon  subtile  distinctions,  alike  in  language-study  and  in 
philosophy.  Directly  to  introduce  the  methods  of  Eng- 
lish instruction,  as  practiced  in  our  colleges,  into  a  scien- 
tific school,  would  be  to  invite  failure.  Here  the  pupils 
have  had  little  language-study;  they  are  generally  un- 
familiar with  the  etymology  of  the  words  they  use;  they 
have  little  ingenuity  in  expression,  and,  indeed,  but 

slight  disposition  to  make  much  of  expression.     For 

111 


112  TECENOLOQICAL  EDUCATION. 

pupils  of  this  class,  the  methods  that  would  be  proper 
and  useful  in  a  college  must  be  modified  in  no  incon- 
siderable degree  if  the  highest  success  is  to  be  obtained. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  deficiencies  of  the  student  of 
science,  as  compared  with  the  student  of  the  classics,  of 
metaphysics,  and  of  rhetoric,  so  far  as  the  familiar  col- 
lege work  in  English  is  concerned.  But  it  must  not  be 
thought  that  the  account  is  all  on  one  side.  The  scien- 
tific student  has,  to  compensate  for  these  deficiencies, 
certain  mental  qualities  which  may  be  made  use  of  to 
good  effect  in  training  him  to  use  his  own  language  in 
statement,  in  narrative,  in  argument,  or  in  the  writing 
of  personal  letters  and  professional  reports.  The  prob- 
lem in  pedagogics  which  I  spoke  of  has  reference  to  the 
best  means  of  making  use  of  those  qualities  in  the  teach- 
ing of  English. 

The  student  of  natural  and  physical  science  has  cer- 
tain deficiencies  in  language  which  have  been  fairly  ac- 
knowledged ;  but  he  has  an  immense  advantage  in  a  far 
greater  clearness  and  vividness  in  the  formation  of  men- 
tal images,  and  a  much  stronger  grasp  upon  his  concep- 
tions. Trained,  day  by  day  and  year  by  year,  in  the 
objective  study  of  concrete  things,  he  sees  nothing 
vaguely;  the  images  he  forms  are  definite  and  distinct; 
what  he  knows,  he  knows  perfectly.  If  fine  writing 
be  the  end  in  view,  these  mental  characteristics  may  or 
may  not  be  advantageous;  but  for  the  purposes  of 
simple,  straightforward,  manly  expression,  whether  in 
description,  in  exposition,  in  narrative,  in  argument,  or 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  "  ENGLISH."  113 

in  business  correspondence,  they  are  a  source  of  great 
power.  Such  a  student  will  still  need  much  study  and 
practice  in  the  use  of  language  to  save  him  from  com- 
mitting numberless  solecisms  and  to  give  him  the  com- 
pletest  use  of  his  own  powers  of  expression;  but  he  is, 
taken  altogether,  a  student  of  English  not  a  whit  less 
promising  than  his  fellow  in  the  classical  college.  Nay, 
the  advantage  indicated  extends  from  the  thinking  to 
the  speaking  or  the  writing,  since  every  word  which  is 
seen  to  contain  a  physical  image,  as  so  many  words  do, 
and  indeed  as  nearly  all  words  in  their  beginning  did, 
means  more  to  a  student  of  science  than  to  a  student  of 
language,  literature,  and  philosophy. 

n. 

The  problem  of  dealing  with  college  students  who 
are  awkward,  weak,  or  inaccurate — one,  or  it  may  be  all 
of  these — in  "  English,"  that  is,  in  conversation,  in  com- 
position, in  penmanship,  and  in  spelling,  is  a  difi&cult  one 
in  classical  colleges.  It  is  still  more  so  in  a  school  like 
this  [the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology] ,  where 
the  amount  of  time  and  effort  which,  at  the  best,  can  be 
devoted  to  instruction  in  these  branches  is  very  closely 
restricted. 

To  begin  with,  it  may  be  said  that  the  sort  of  teach- 
ing which  alone  can  help  this  class  of  students,  which 
alone  can  save  them  from  grave  injury  to  their  social 
and  professional  character  and  standing,  does  not  really 
belong  to  the  college.     It  is  in  the  earlier  schools — if  in 


114  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

school  at  all — that  the  pupil  should  acquire  ease,  direct- 
ness, simplicity,  and  accuracy  of  expression — whether 
in  statement  or  in  illustration,  whether  in  narrative  or 
in  argument.  If  a  child  passes  from  the  granunar 
school  into  the  high  school  slow,  blundering,  and  awk- 
ward in  expression,  heedless  in  his  writing,  inaccurate 
in  spelling,  he  can,  indeed,  be  helped  in  a  measure  to 
overcome  his  defects  and  infirmities,  by  a  great  deal  of 
attention  and  effort  on  the  part  of  his  teachers;  but  it 
will  require — let  us  say — three  times  as  much  of  that 
effort  and  attention  to  effect  any  degree  of  improvement 
in  these  particulars  as  would  have  been  needed  to  bring 
about  the  same  result  in  the  grammar  school.  And, 
again,  if  the  pupil  goes  on  from  the  high  school  into  the 
college  still  suffering  from  defects  and  infirmities  re- 
garding expression,  it  will  require — again  let  us  say — 
three  times  as  much  effort  and  attention  on  the  part  of 
his  teacher  there  to  give  him  anything  like  adequate 
power  in  arranging  his  ideas  with  reference  to  their  ex- 
pression, in  controlling  his  thoughts  while  passing  down 
the  flume  to  the  wheel,  and  in  uttering  them  easily, 
clearly,  connectedly,  accurately,  as  would  have  been  re- 
quired to  effect  this  training  in  the  high  school.  In 
other  words,  when  a  college  is  called  upon  to  teach  and 
to  train  a  pupil  so  that  he  shall  not  prejudice  himself 
through  all  the  rest  of  his  life,  socially  and  profession- 
ally, by  blundering,  awkward,  obscure,  and  inaccurate 
expression,  it  is  in  fact  required  to  do  something  which 
does  not  belong  to  the  college  at  all,  and  the  difficulties 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  '' ENOLISE."  115 

of  which  have  been  aggravated  many-fold  by  neglect  in 
earlier  years.  For  a  college  to  impart  the  ability  to 
■write  simple,  plain,  straightforward,  agreeable  English 
is  as  much  more  difficult  than  would  have  been  the  same 
task  in  respect  to  the  same  pupil  in  the  grammar  school, 
as  is  the  correction  of  a  grievous  fault  in  the  limbs  of  a 
mature  man,  compared  with  the  correction  of  the  same 
fault  in  the  limbs  of  a  growing  child. 

But  the  fact  that  this  kind  of  work  does  not  properly 
belong  to  the  college  at  all  constitutes  no  reason  why, 
in  the  face  of  neglect  by  the  lower  schools,  the  college 
should  not  take  it  up,  for  the  sake  of  otherwise  good  and 
successful  scholars  who  have  the  promise  of  professional 
and  social  usefulness.  The  faculty  of  a  school  like  our 
own  cannot  content  themselves  with  saying  that  this 
pupil  or  that  ought  to  have  acquired  his  "  English  "  be- 
fore coming  hither;  and  that  they  will  not  do  anything 
to  meet  the  lamentable  fact  that,  in  all  matters  concern- 
ing the  arrangement  and  expression  of  his  thoughts  for 
writing  or  for  speaking,  he  is  as  woeful  a  case  of  de- 
formity, obliquity,  and  perversion  as  ever  was  brought 
into  the  operating  room  of  a  hospital.  Little  as  that 
task  is  properly  chargeable  upon  the  teachers  of  an  in- 
stitution of  such  a  grade,  it  is  still  true  that  many  deserv- 
ing young  men  who,  as  students  of  science  and  in 
technical  work,  are  strong,  clear-headed,  and  sensible, 
and  who  may  confidently  be  relied  upon  to  do  excellent 
work  in  a  scientific  profession,  will  suffer  deep  and 
irreparable  injury  by  reason  of  deficiencies  and  mistakes 


116  TECENOLOOICAL  EDUCATION. 

in  expression  and  representation,  unless  they  are  helped 
in  this  matter.  Not  only  will  they  fail  to  do  justice  to 
their  scientific  conceptions,  to  the  results  of  their  prac- 
tical investigations,  to  the  validity  of  their  economic 
proposals,  but  they  will  be  at  a  continual  disadvantage  in 
the  view  of  their  employers  and  in  the  public  mind,  in 
comparison  with  men  who,  as  thinkers  or  workers,  may 
be  miles  below  them.  It  is  true,  and  we  have  to  accept 
the  fact,  that  a  monstrously  disproportionate  value  is  at- 
tached to  certain  matters  of  expression,  as  for  example, 
spelling.  A  man  may  be  learned,  fertile  in  ideas,  rich 
in  imagery,  even  eloquent  in  speech,  and  yet  a  mistake 
in  spelling  will  make  him  an  object  of  ridicule  by  men 
who  have  not  a  hundredth  part  his  accomplishments  and 
acquirements.  A  man  may  not  know  three  facts  in  hu- 
man history,  much  less  have  an  idea  regarding  any  one 
of  them,  and  yet  not  be  so  much  at  a  disadvantage  in 
consequence,  as  would  a  learned  and  able  scholar  and 
thinker  who  sometimes  misspelled  a  word.  Now,  it  is 
not  the  business  of  the  colleges  to  convert  public  opinion 
to  a  true  relative  appreciation  of  spelling  in  comparison 
with  other  gifts  and  accomplishments,  but  to  accept  the 
opinion  and  present  view  of  society  on  that  point,  and, 
by  such  opportunities  as  they  may  have  at  command,  to 
endeavor  to  save  otherwise  promising  pupils  from  a 
grave  disadvantage,  both  professional  and  social. 

What,  then,  may  the  technical  and  scientific  school, 
where  only  a  small  portion  of  time  can  possibly  be  given 
to  English  studies,  do  for  those  students  who  have  come 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  '•ENGLISH."  117 

up  from  the  high  schools  prepared  in  the  main  to  carry 
on  their  college  work  satisfactorily,  perhaps  with  marked 
success,  and  yet  grossly  deficient  and  defective  in  the 
matter  of  which  we  have  been  speaking?  We  will 
assume  that  some  portion  of  time  is  given  in  the  college 
to  the  instruction  of  the  whole  body  of  students  in  Eng- 
lish. Shall  the  view  which  has  been  presented  above  of 
the  very  great  importance  of  this  matter  to  the  less  for- 
tunate members  of  the  class — English-wise — ^and  the 
acknowledgment  by  the  faculty  of  a  certain  degree  of 
responsibility  in  the  case,  lead  to  an  effort  to  increase  the 
time  devoted  to  English  by  all  the  students  of  the  suc- 
cessive classes?  or  shall  those  who  are  notably  deficient 
in  the  respects  indicated  be  constituted  a  separate  body, 
for  additional,  and  as  far  as  possible,  individual  treat- 
ment? As  to  the  first  suggestion,  it  may  at  once  be  said 
that  a  three-fold  increase  of  the  time  now  devoted  at  the 
Institute  of  Technology  to  class-work  in  English  would 
not  meet  the  case;  and,  of  course,  any  such  increase  is 
out  of  the  question.  Indeed,  I  am  much  disposed  to 
think  that  no  amount  of  additional  class-work  would 
have  the  result,  in  any  large  degree,  of  curing  the  defects 
and  supplying  the  deficiencies  of  which  we  have  been 
speaking.  For  students  suffering  from  this  infirmity, 
class-room  work  hardly  hits  the  mark  at  all,  though  it 
may  be  of  great  value  to  those  who  have  a  certain  nat- 
ural competency  in  English  and  have  been  well  trained 
and  under  good  influences,  in  this  respect,  at  home  and 
in  the  preparatory  schools.     Even  if  it  were  possible 


118  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

largely  to  increase  the  amount  of  time  given  to  English' 
work,  it  would  be  better  to  adopt  the  alternative  sugges- 
tion and  to  look  upon  all  students  who  are  notably  defi- 
cient in  this  particular  as  constituting  a  class  for  distinct 
and,  as  far  as  possible,  individual  treatment.  Without 
going  into  the  philosophy  of  the  subject,  I  beg  to  be 
permitted  to  outline  a  scheme  which,  it  seems  to  me, 
might  be  adopted  to  good  advantage  by  the  English  de- 
partment, with  the  sanction  of  the  faculty. 

(1)  In  the  first  place,  there  should  be  made  up  dur- 
ing the  first  term  in  the  English  department,  as  the 
result  of  entrance  examinations,  of  department  work  in 
composition,  and  of  the  inspection  of  matter  written  in 
the  course  of  the  students'  ordinary  work  in  other  de- 
partments, a  "  black  list,"  though  not  a  list  so  called,  on 
which  should  be  found  the  names  of  all  students  who 
show  marked  deficiency  in  the  respects  indicated.  The 
value  of  such  a  list  would  greatly  depend  upon  its  being 
made  up,  not  only  with  care,  but  conservatively.  K 
students  were  liable  to  be  put  upon  the  list  merely  by 
reason  of  a  slip  or  two,  occurring  in  simple  carelessness 
or  haste,  the  purposes  of  the  system  would  be  practically 
defeated.  Only  those  names  should  go  upon  the  list 
which  represent  students  suffering  from  inveterate  weak- 
nesses or  disorders  in  thinking  and  writing. 

(2)  Each  student  thus  put  upon  the  list, — which  I 
shall  continue  for  the  purposes  of  the  present  discussion 
to  call  the  "  black  list,"  though  of  course  such  a  title 
would  be  impossible  in  the  actual  working  of  the  scheme, 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  "  ENGLI8M."  U9 

— should  be  informed  by  the  head  of  the  English  de- 
partment, in  the  most  friendly  and  kindly  way,  that 
attention  has  been  called  to  certain  marked  defects,  defi- 
ciencies, and  weaknesses  on  his  English  side.  This  com- 
munication should  go  on  to  explain  how  much  of  social 
and  even  of  professional  annoyance  and  embarrassment 
may  be  suffered  from  this  source.  The  student  should 
then  be  advised  to  give  his  thought  seriously  to  the  mat- 
ter, trying  for  himself  to  rectify  the  tendency  to  make 
mistakes  or  to  write  or  speak  awkwardly  or  blunder- 
ingly. He  would  naturally  be  advised  always  to  look 
over  his  own  letters  and  papers  after  writing  them — a 
matter  in  respect  to  which  most  young  men  are  very 
much  at  fault.  Certain  books  would  perhaps  be  com- 
mended to  him.  The  advantage  of  such  a  communica- 
tion would  be  found  largely  in  the  fact  that  the  evil 
tendencies  referred  to  are  due,  in  many  cases,  to  thought- 
lessness or  carelessness.  Just  as  hosts  of  boys  and  girls 
who,  in  the  course  of  becoming  round-shouldered  and 
slouching  in  bearing  and  carriage,  have,  simply  by 
being  nagged  about  it  by  parents  and  brothers  and  sis- 
ters, been  brought  into  almost  painful  uprightness 
and  rectangularity,  so  many  students  need  only  to  have 
the  matter  brought  sharply  to  their  attention  and  held 
strongly  before  it,  to  induce  efforts  on  their  part  which 
would  suffice  to  secure  good  results.  With  the  forma- 
tion of  the  "  black  list,"  and  with  such  notices  of  warn- 
ing and  advice  to  the  individual  students  concerned,  I 
would  have  nothing  more  done  during  the  first  year,  be- 


120  TECHNOLOGICAL  EDUCATION. 

yond  what  might  come  through  a  cordial  invitation  to 
students  to  consult  their  teachers  freely. 

(3)  At  the  end  of  the  first  year,  I  would  have  the 
English  department  carefully  revise  the  "  black  list," 
and  send  out  to  each  person  who  had  received  the  pre- 
vious notice,  one  or  the  other  of  two  forms  of  communi- 
cation. In  one  the  student  might  be  encouraged,  not 
too  much,  by  the  information  that  his  work  had  shown 
improvement;  but  he  should  be  advised  very  earnestly 
to  make  further  progress  in  this  direction,  especially  by 
reading  books  which  have  a  peculiar  ease  and  felicity  of 
expression,  and  in  some  considerable  measure,  by  read- 
ing such  books  aloud,  or  by  hearing  them  read  aloud  by 
others.  I  am  convinced  that  the  education  of  the  ear  is 
too  much  neglected  in  the  modem  school.  The  other 
form  of  communication  referred  to  might  be  sent  to 
those  students  who  had  not  made  an  appreciable  degree 
of  progress  in  correcting  their  faults  or  in  supplying 
their  deficiencies.  This  letter  should  be  kind  in  tone; 
but  it  should  very  strongly  set  forth  the  disadvantages 
which  the  young  men  will  inevitably  suffer,  both  socially 
and  professionally,  unless  they  rid  themselves  of  their 
limitations,  their  weaknesses,  and  their  positive  defects 
in  the  matter  of  writing  and  speaking.  The  communi- 
cation might  go  on  to  say  that  this  warning,  given  at  the 
beginning  of  the  summer  vacation,  was  intended  to  sug- 
gest to  them  the  importance  of  making  strenuous  efforts 
to  that  end  during  the  three  or  four  months  following. 
Attendance  on  a  summer  school,  if  practicable,  should 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  *'  ENGLISH."  121 

be  recommended.  Rules  and  prescriptions  suitable  to 
the  general  case  of  such  students  might  be  given.  In 
the  preparation  of  these,  the  teachers  of  English  at  the 
Institute  of  Technology  would  have  an  opportunity  to 
achieve  great  distinction,  since  the  field  is  largely  virgin 
soil.  This  communication  might  close  with  the  state- 
ment that,  unless  the  course  of  the  second  year  should 
show  a  marked  improvement  in  the  respect  under  con- 
sideration, the  student  would  at  the  end  be  formally 
"  conditioned  "  in  English  and  would  thereupon  be  re- 
quired to  take  a  considerable  body  of  studies  and  exer- 
cises, under  direction  and  supervision,  and  as  a  purely 
extra  thing,  without  which  he  could  not  further  attend 
as  a  regular  student  in  the  Institute.  Such  a  condition, 
for  example,  might  require  attendance  upon  a  summer 
course  especially  conducted  for  students  of  this  class,  in 
which  attention  would  be  principally  given  to  weak- 
nesses, and  to  defects  and  mistakes  of  expression.  The 
condition  imposed  should  not  be  a  slight  one,  and  should 
be  remorselessly  exacted.  The  mere  fact  of  placing  so 
much  importance  upon  this  matter,  at  the  middle  of  the 
college  course,  would  have  a  salutary  effect  in  arousing 
the  pupils'  attention  and  interest  in  the  matter;  while 
some  weeks  of  hard  work  under  severe  criticism  could 
not  fail  to  have  a  certain  positive  result  for  good,  neces- 
sarily much  greater  in  the  case  of  some  students  than  of 
others. 

(4)  Having  done  so  much  as  has  been  indicated,  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  faculty  of  the  Institute,  as  a  body, 


122  TECHNOLOQIGAL  EDUCATION. 

might  thereafter  regard  themselves  as  discharged  of  re- 
sponsibility in  this  matter,  though  the  English  depart- 
ment will,  of  course,  continually  strive  to  improve  the 
character  of  the  students'  work  through  class  exercises 
and  individual  conferences,  and  through  criticism  of 
papers  prepared  in  the  course  of  professional  study.  I 
would  refuse  the  degree  of  the  Institute,  on  account  of 
deficiencies  or  defects  in  English,  to  no  man  who  was  in 
all  other  respects  well  qualified  for  a  creditable  profes- 
sional career.  I  would  recognize  the  fact  that  there  are 
some  persons  who  are  deaf,  dumb,  and  blind  on  this  side 
of  their  minds  and  yet  are  capable  of  excellent  work  as 
scholars,  as  thinkers,  and  as  men  engaged  in  professional 
practice.  All  the  lecturing  in  the  world  will  do  very 
little  for  this  insoluble  residue,  and  they  must  go  into  the 
world  bearing  this  burden  for  life,  just  as  they  would 
bear  a  physical  infirmity  which  was  not  to  be  cured. 

Of  course,  all  the  foregoing  should  be  only  in  the 
nature  of  a  supplement  to  the  unceasing  efforts  of  the 
faculty  of  the  Institute,  and  especially  of  the  teachers 
of  English,  to  raise  the  standard  of  the  high  schools,  and, 
through  them,  of  the  grammar  schools,  in  the  respect 
under  consideration.  While,  in  the  spirit  of  humanity, 
dealing  as  well  as  possible  with  the  bad  surgical  cases 
sent  up  to  college,  we  should  see  to  it,  so  far  as  lies  in 
us,  that  the  earlier  schools  give  orthopedic  treatment  in 
all  cases  of  deformity  or  weakness,  at  the  stage  when 
these  can  be  dealt  with  most  easily  and  effectively. 


MANUAL  EDUCATION 


INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

1884 


Address  before  the  American  Social  Science  As- 
sociation, September  9,  1884.  From  the  Journal  of 
Social  Science,  No.  19. 


INDUSTEIAL  EDUCATION.  < 

In  the  active  discussion  now  in  progress  concerning 
Industrial  Education,  that  term  is  used  in  such  widely 
different  senses  as  to  require  that  a  paper  treating  of  this 
theme  should  begin  with  a  definition.  With  a  view  to 
this,  I  offer  the  following  classification  of  the  schools 
which  undertake  what  is  by  one  person  or  another  under- 
stood to  be  industrial  education. 

First,  we  have  the  schools  of  applied  science  and  tech- 
nology, whose  purpose  is  to  train  the  engineer,  the  archi- 
tect, the  geologist,  the  chemist,  the  metallurgist,  for  the 
work  of  their  several  professions.  These  schools  do  not 
aim  to  educate  the  men  who  are  to  do  the  manual  work 
of  modem  industry.  In  the  main,  they  do  not  even  aim 
to  educate  the  men  who  are  to  oversee  and  educate  the 
work  of  others — the  men,  that  is,  who  are  to  act  as  super- 
intendents of  labor.  It  is  the  function  of  schools  of 
this  class  to  train  those  who  shall  investigate  the  material 
resources  of  the  country,  and  shall  project  operations 
for  the  development  of  such  resources,  to  be  carried  on 
by  bodies  of  labor  and  of  capital  under  the  direction,  in 
the  main,  of  persons  who  have  received  their  education 
and  training  in  schools  of  a  different  order,  or  through 
practical  experience  in  the  field,  the  shop,  and  the  mine. 

The  distinction  here  rudely  outlined  between  the  per- 

125 


126  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

son  who  investigates  tlie  material  resources  of  the  coun- 
try, in  any  direction,  and  organizes  industrial  enterprises 
for  the  exploitation  of  those  resources,  and  the  per- 
son who  superintends  and  directs  the  labor  employed 
in  such  enterprises,  is  not,  indeed,  strictly  maintained; 
hut  it  exists  in  a  general  way,  although  a  tendency  to 
employ,  in  increasing  degree,  civil,  mechanical,  and  min- 
ing engineers,  chemists,  and  metallurgists  in  adminis- 
trative and  executive  capacities,  has  been  observed  dur- 
ing the  past  few  years. 

The  expediency  of  establishing  schools  of  the  class 
herein  indicated  is  no  longer  a  matter  of  debate.  The 
general  government  and  many,  if  not  all,  of  the  State 
governments  have  recognized  the  importance  of  thus 
providing  for  the  scientific  development  of  our  indus- 
tries; and  the  large  and  increasing  measure  of  reputation 
and  financial  success  enjoyed  by  the  Troy  School  of 
Civil  Engineering,  the  Hoboken  School  of  Mechanical 
Engineering,  the  Sheffield  School  of  Civil  and  Mechan- 
ical Engineering,  the  Columbia  School  of  Mining  Engi- 
neering, the  Boston  Institute  of  Technology,  with  its 
departments  of  civil,  mechanical,  and  mining  engineer- 
ing, the  Worcester  Free  Institute  of  Industrial  Science, 
the  Chandler  Scientific  School  and  the  Thayer  Engineer- 
ing School,  both  of  Dartmouth  College,  with  a  score  of 
other  institutions  all  deserving  to  be  named  were  this 
the  immediate  subject  of  our  paper,  show  that  the  value 
of  such  institutions  has  passed  beyond  challenge  or  cavil. 

A  second  and  widely  different  class  of  institutions  is 


INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.  127 

found  in  the  so-called  trade  schools.  The  purpose  of 
schools  of  this  class  is  to  train  the  actual  workers  in  in- 
dustry, and  to  train  them,  moreover,  for  what  it  is  pre- 
sumed will  be  their  individual  occupations  in  life.  In 
the  main,  these  schools  do  not  aim  to  train  the  overseers 
and  superintendents  of  labor,  but  the  individual  opera- 
tives. And,  in  general,  the  work  of  these  schools 
assumes  that  the  particular  vocation  for  life  of  the  chil- 
dren who  enter  them  is  already  reasonably  well  deter- 
mined. 

The  efforts  at  industrial  education  in  the  States  of 
Europe  have  commonly  taken  this  form.  The  trade 
schools  of  Switzerland,  of  Holland,  and  of  France,  are 
schools  in  which  young  people  are  taught  well-defined 
trades,  generally  such  as  are  pursued  in  the  immediate 
region  where  the  schools  are  established.  Thus,  certain 
trade  schools  in  Switzerland  have  reference  to  the  great 
watch-making  industry  of  that  country,  and  have  it  for 
their  object  to  train  pupils  who,  it  is  assumed,  will,  by 
almost  an  industrial  necessity,  become  watchmakers. 

The  third  class  of  schools,  and  that  to  which  the 
present  paper  will  be  confined,  comprises  those  into 
which  manual  and  mechanical  instruction  and  training 
are  introduced  in  greater  or  less  degree ;  not,  on  the  one 
hand,  to  make  engineers;  not,  on  the  other  hand,  for  the 
purpose  of  training  the  pupil  to  become  an  operative  in 
any  particular  branch  of  industry  which  it  is  presumed 
he  will  enter;  but  as  a  part  of  the  general  education  of 
the  scholar,  with  reference  to  the  fuller  and  more  sym- 


128  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

metrical  development  of  all  his  faculties  and  powers,  and 
to  the  promotion  of  his  success  in  whatever  sphere  of 
labor  it  shall  subsequently  be  determined  he  is  to  enter. 

It  is  schools  of  this  class  the  establishment  of  which  is 
at  this  time  being  especially  urged,  under  the  general 
title  of  Industrial  Education. 

In  some  respects,  the  term  "  industrial  education  "  is 
itself  an  unfortunate  one.  The  term  "  mechanical  edu- 
cation "  would  better  express  the  objects  of  those  who 
are  now  advocating  an  important  modification  of  our 
system  of  instruction.  But  the  term  first  referred  to 
has  been  so  widely  adopted  in  the  discussion  of  this  sub- 
ject that  it  is  likely  to  be  used  long  after  the  mechanical 
education  of  our  children  and  youth  has  passed  the 
period  of  debate  and  has  become  incorporated  in  our 
public  school  system. 

The  distinction  between  the  trade  school  and  the 
school  of  the  kind  last  indicated,  will  be  seen,  if  prop- 
erly contemplated,  to  be  very  marked.  !N'ot  only  does 
the  trade  school  assume  that  there  is  a  high  degree  of 
probability  that  the  pupil  will  enter  a  definite  field  of 
labor,  for  which  it  undertakes  to  prepare  him;  but  the 
establishment  of  such  schools  undoubtedly  contributes, 
in  an  important  degree,  to  enhance  the  probability  of 
that  result. 

The  confusion  of  trade  education  with  a  general  me- 
chanical education  has  undoubtedly  engendered  not  a 
little  of  the  prejudice  which  the  scheme  of  industrial 
education  has  encountered  in  certain  quarters  within  the 


INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.  129 

United  States.  It  has  been  alleged  that  the  establish- 
ment of  the  proposed  system  would  be  opposed  to  the 
sentiments  of  our  people  and  to  the  genius  of  our  insti- 
tutions, inasmuch  as  it  would  assume  that  the  children 
who  were  to  receive  training  were  bom  to  a  certain  con- 
dition of  life,  and  were  destined  to  perform  a  certain 
industrial  role.  The  scheme  of  industrial  education 
has,  therefore,  been  objected  to  as  curtaihng  the  glori- 
ous birthright  of  every  American  boy  to  become  banker, 
merchant,  judge,  or  president,  as  his  own  abilities  and 
virtues  may  qualify  him.  It  will  appear,  I  think,  in  the 
further  course  of  this  paper,  that  the  objection  is 
founded  upon  a  misapprehension ;  and  that  the  adoption 
of  the  system  of  education  under  view  would  not  only 
not  confine  the  choice  of  the  pupil  as  to  his  subsequent 
mode  of  life,  but  would  tend  to  give  him  an  even  greater 
freedom  of  movement  and  action. 

That  the  establishment  of  trade  schools,  in  the  strict 
sense  of  that  term,  has  proved  advantageous  in  many  of 
the  crowded  communities  of  Europe,  I  entertain  no 
doubt.  When,  by  reason  of  the  dense  occupation  of  the 
soil  and  the  diversification  and  localization  of  industries, 
the  choice  of  young  persons  is,  in  fact,  very  closely 
limited,  it  is  probably  the  part  of  wisdom  to  recognize 
that  fact,  to  accept  the  situation,  and  to  prepare  the 
young  as  well  as  possible  for  the  work  which,  by  almost 
a  moral  necessity,  they  will  be  called  to  perform.  That 
even  in  some  communities  of  the  United  States  the 
point  has  already  been  reached  where  the  establishment 


180  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

of  trade  schools  by  private  benevolence,  or  even  by- 
municipal  authority,  might  be  practically  advantageous, 
I  am  not  disposed  to  deny. 

In  any  large  city  whose  population  is  chiefly,  and  per- 
haps almost  wholly,  occupied  in  some  single  and  highly 
special  branch  of  industry,  the  instruction  of  the  young 
in  the  arts  specially  concerned  in  the  prosecution  of  that 
industry  may  be  deemed,  not  imreasonably,  the  dictate 
of  practical  wisdom. 

Yet  the  position  of  those  who  have  opposed  industrial 
education  on  the  ground  that  the  United  States  have  not 
yet  reached  the  condition  which  requires  or  justifies  the 
education  at  the  public  expense  and  under  State  au- 
thority, of  young  children,  with  reference  to  specific 
trades,  is  in  the  main  sound  and  just.  The  proper  an- 
swer to  this  objection  is,  that  the  system  of  industrial 
education  proposed  would  rather  enlarge  than  confine 
the  subsequent  choice  of  occupations  by  the  children  of 
our  public  schools. 

The  purpose  sought  by  the  advocates  of  so-called  in- 
dustrial education  is  the  training  of  the  eye  and  the 
hand  of  the  pupil,  and  his  acquisition  of  those  elemen- 
tary principles  of  physics  and  mechanics  which  underlie 
all  dealings  with  the  forces  of  nature  and  with  material 
objects. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  "  establishment "  of  schools  of 
industrial  or  mechanical  education.  Yet,  in  truth,  it  is 
not  so  much  the  creation  and  endowment  of  separate 
scliools  of  this  character  which  is  in  view,  as  the  gradual 


INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.  131 

conversion  of  all  the  existing  schools  of  the  land  to  this 
use,  through  the  grafting  of  certain  studies  and  exer- 
cises upon  the  traditional  curriculum.  Such  conver- 
sion would  involve  only  a  slight  disturbance  of  the 
structure  of  the  existing  schools;  but  it  would  require 
the  surrender  of  a  not  inconsiderable  portion  of  time  to 
the  new  studies  and  exercises. 

In  order  not  to  protract  this  paper  unduly,  or  to  pro- 
voke needless  controversy,  I  shall  on  the  present  occasion 
confine  my  remarks  to  the  relations  of  the  proposed 
changes  in  public  instruction  to  the  boys  of  our  public 
schools,  leaving  open  the  question  whether  the  girls 
shall  join  in  the  new  departure,  or  not. 

As  to  the  precise  nature  and  extent  of  the  studies  and 
exercises  which  should,  to  this  end,  be  incorporated  in 
the  public  school  curriculum,  and  as  to  the  order  of  these 
exercises,  much  difference  of  opinion  will  doubtless  be 
developed  among  those  who  advocate  an  extensive  modi- 
fication of  the  present  scheme  of  education.  The  true 
final  system,  will,  of  course,  have  to  be  worked  out 
through  long  discussion  and  experimentation.  The 
following  is  presented  as  a  fairly  conservative  pro- 
gramme: 

Beginning  with  the  pupil  at  the  stage  when  kinder- 
garten methods  and  appliances  are  exhausted  of  their 
eflBciency,  the  scholar  should  be  instructed  in  the  ele- 
mentary principles  of  physics  and  mechanios  through 
the  use  of  simple  models  and  apparatus,  and  should  be- 
come familiarized  through  frequent  statement  and  illus- 


182  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

tration  with  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  geometry. 
There  is  a  deep-seated  popular  error  as  to  the  age  at 
which  such  things  as  the  above  can  advantageously  be 
acquired.  It  is  too  often  assumed  that  because  the 
young  child  is  not  competent  to  study  geometry  system- 
atically he  need  be  taught  nothing  geometrical;  that 
because  it  would  be  foolish  to  present  to  him  physics  and 
mechanics  as  sciences  it  is  useless  to  present  to  him  any 
physical  or  mechanical  principles. 

An  error  of  like  origin,  which  has  wrought  incalcula- 
ble mischief,  denies  to  the  scholar  the  use  of  the  symbols 
and  methods  of  algebra  in  connection  with  his  early 
essays  in  numbers  because,  forsooth,  he  is  not  as  yet 
capable  of  mastering  quadratics!  If  our  children  were 
taught  to  "  do  their  sums  "  algebraically  at  eight,  nine, 
or  ten,  the  later  parts  of  the  algebra  would  have  far  less 
terror  for  them  at  fifteen,  sixteen,  or  seventeen.  And 
yet,  from  the  notion  that  the  teacher  must  not  take  up 
any  subject  which  the  pupil  is  not  prepared  to  go 
through  with  to  the  end  and  to  master  scientifically,  we 
drive  our  boys  and  girls  to  the  most  painful  and  ab- 
surdly roundabout  methods  of  solving  problems.  The 
moment  the  child  begins  to  "  do  sums  "  upon  his  slate 
he  needs  his  x  and  y,  and  for  lack  of  them  he  is  con- 
tinually driven  back  to  "What  d'ye  call  'em,"  or 
"  thingumbob,"  his  unknown  quantity,  the  object  of 
inquiry  for  which  he  is  refused  a  symbol — the  length 
of  the  pole,  John's  share  of  the  cake,  the  number  of  gal- 
lons in  the  cistern,  or  what  not.     The  whole  infant 


INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.  133 

generation,  wrestling  with  arithmetic,  seek  for  a  sign 
and  groan  and  travail  together  in  pain  for  the  want  of 
it;  but  no  sign  is  given  them  save  the  sign  of  the  prophet 
Jonah,  the  withered  gourde  fruitless  endeavor,  wasted 
strength. 

To  teach  the  so-called  arithmetic  of  the  common 
school  without  the  use  of  the  algebraic  signs  and  nota- 
tion, is  in  the  last  degree  barbarous;  yet  it  is  done,  almost 
without  exception,  in  the  case  of  ten  millions  of  school 
children,  all  from  the  notion  that  they  are  not  yet  pre- 
pared to  enter  upon  the  study  of  algebra!  Study  of 
algebra!  Algebra  is  a  tool,  and  nothing  but  a  tool,  and, 
so  far  as  equations  of  the  first  degree  are  concerned,  it 
is  a  tool  which  the  child  needs  the  moment  he  is  set  to 
inquire  in  how  many  days  Jones  and  Brown  can  do  a 
piece  of  work  together,  if  Jones  could  do  it  in  ten  days 
alone  or  Brown  in  fifteen.  For  an  equally  bad  reason, 
many  things  have  been  withheld  from  school  children, 
though  these  were  things  of  which  every  child  should 
be  informed  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  because 
they  belong  to  geometry,  for  the  systematic  study  of 
which  the  scholar  has  been  held  not  to  be  prepared. 

It  is  true  that  of  late  years,  teachers,  drawing  doubt- 
less their  inspiration  from  the  kindergarten,  have  pre- 
sumed to  give  the  geometry  of  the  square  and  cube  be- 
fore requiring  the  arithmetic  of  square  root  and  cube 
root;  but  this  concession  to  common  sense  stands  almost 
solitary  and  alone  on  the  pages  of  the  modem  text-book. 
Take,  for  example,  the  conception  of  a  plane,  the  most 


134  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

dijEcult  and  the  mosrt  important  of  all  conceptions  for 
the  purposes  of  the  geometer,  the  astronomer,  the  mech- 
anician. This  conception  should,  for  subsequent  success 
whether  in  geometry,  in  astronomy,  or  in  mechanics,  be 
formed  in  the  mind  of  the  child  at  the  earliest  possible 
moment,  just  as  the  notion  of  right  should  be  formed  in 
his  mind  years  and  years  before  he  is  called  to  the  sys- 
tematic study  of  ethics.^     No  subsequent  effort  can 

'  As  to  the  question  whether  morality  can  be  taught  in  our  public 
schools  without  sectarianism,  I  would  say  that  I  do  not  see  how  any 
system  of  morality  which  undertakes  to  go  back  to  an  ultimate  rule 
of  right  can  be  taught  without  sectarianism. 

If,  however,  the  teacher  is  content  to  begin  somewhat  short  of  that 
point,  it  seems  to  me  perfectly  practicable  to  give  instruction  in  ethics 
without  involving  any  sectarian  issues,  although  it  is  doubtful 
whether  this  can  be  done  without  arousing  sectarian  spirit,  inas- 
much as  there  are  certain  sects  or  denominations  which  resent  the 
omission  of  their  own  particular  tenets,  as  itself  irreligious  and  im- 
moral. Of  course,  with  such  people  you  can  do  nothing.  They  are 
opposed  alike  to  public  school  teaching  with  ethics  and  without 
ethics;  and  any  attempt  to  conciliate  them  or  buy  off  their  opposition 
will  be  futile,  and  will  only  weaken  the  dignity  and  authority  of  the 
school  system. 

As  to  just  how  much  may  be  taught  without  raising  sectarian 
issues,  opinions  might  differ  widely,  and  I  do  not  claim  to  have  made 
a  special  study  of  this  department  of  instruction.  I  should  say,  how- 
ever, that : 

1.  Legal  ethics  may  be  taught  without  offense  being  properly 
taken  by  anyone,  and  this  would  cover  a  large  part  of  the  desirable 
field  of  teaching.  Clearly,  all  the  acts  which  are  prescribed,  or  are 
forbidden,  by  the  law  of  the  land  may  properly  be  embraced  in  the 
instruction  of  the  public  schools. 

2.  It  appears  to  me  that  utilitarian  ethics  may  be  taught  in  the  public 
schools  without  raising  sectarian  issues,  and  without  arousing  the  sec- 
tarian susceptibilities  of  any  person  who  is  not  at  heart  opposed  to  the 
schools  themselves.  I  mean  by  utilitarian  ethics  a  system  or  scheme  of 
morality  which,  without  attempting  to  raise  the  question  of  the  ulti- 
mate rule  of  right,  shall  accept  the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest  num- 
ber as  an  approximate  rule  for  determining  what  is  beat  to  be  done  and 


INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.  135 

make  up  for  the  neglect  of  such  fundamental  concep- 
tions in  the  very  beginnings  of  education.  The  free- 
dom and  force  with  which  these  conceptions  will  be 
referred  to  and  made  use  of  in  after-life,  must  in  a  very- 
large  degree  depend  upon  the  age  at  which  they  are  first 
acquired. 

They  should  be  early  implanted  in  the  mind  that  they 
may  grow  with  its  growth  and  strengthen  with  its 
strength.  What  sort  of  students  of  literature  would 
you  have  if  you  put  off  the  teaching  of  the  alphabet  of 
letters  till  fourteen  or  fifteen  or  sixteen,  as  you  in  fact 
put  off  the  teaching  of  the  alphabet  of  science?  You 
give  the  child  English  letters  at  five  or  six,  and  let  him 
grow  up,  through  long  practice  in  easy  lessons,  with 
fairy  stories  and  picture  books,  and  tales  of  travel  and 
adventure,  to  the  capability  of  reading  and  compre- 
hending the  masterpieces  of  literature;  yet  it  is  only  on 
the  day  when  the  young  man  begins  the  scientific  study 
of  optics,  for  example,  that  you  give  him  a  definition  of 
light  and  show  him  simple  experiments  in  reflection  and 
refraction.  The  student  should  at  this  age  be  unable  to 
remember  when  he  did  not  know  these  things;  and  no 
amount  of  hard  work  in  after-life  can  ever  wholly  make 
up  for  the  lack  of  early  familiarity  with  the  subjects  of 

what  18  best  to  be  left  undone.  Such  a  scheme  could  manifestly  be  ex- 
tended to  embrace  nearly  all  the  practical  topics  involved  in  any  system 
of  ethics  without  raising  any  sectarian  issues.  It  would,  moreover, 
constitute  an  excellent  beginning  for  a  course  in  civics. — i^Vow  a 
Symposium,  "  Can  morality  be  taught  in  the  public  schools  without 
sectarianism?  "  in  the  "  Christian  Register"  January  31,  1889. 


136  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

his  study,  the  value  of  which  every  instructor  acknowl- 
edges in  other  branches  of  education,  whether  relating 
to  literature,  to  morals,  or  to  practical  affairs. 

Time  will  not  serve  for  an  extended,  illustration  of 
this  subject.  A  child  of  ten  or  twelve  years  is  capable 
of  understanding  the  principle  of  the  lever  just  as  per- 
fectly as  did  Archimedes  of  old  Syracuse.  Once  implant 
that  conception  in  his  mind  and  it  becomes  germinal 
and,  without  watering  or  tending,  will  bear  fruit  peren- 
nially through  all  his  life. 

A  child  of  the  same  age  can  comprehend  the  principle 
of  the  arch,  when  illustrated  by  a  few  blocks  from  a  car- 
penter's shop,  as  fully  as  does  the  architect  who  hangs 
a  stone  dome  one  hundred  feet  in  air;  and  when  he  has 
once  comprehended  the  construction  and  office  of  the 
arch,  his  eye  will  never  threafter  fall  unintelligently 
upon  an  example  of  it.  A  child  of  the  same  age  is  capa- 
ble of  comprehending  the  law  of  perspective.  Why  in 
the  name  of  common  sense  should  one  go  on  for  years, 
walking  through  our  streets  or  over  our  fields,  his  eye 
falling  at  every  glance  upon  some  object  which  is  sub- 
ject to  this  law,  and  yet  never  be  instructed  regarding  it? 

Do  you  ask  how  much  of  the  elements  of  physics  and 
mechanics  should  be  given  to  the  child  of  tender  years? 
I  answer:  just  as  much  as  he  will  take,  be  the  same  more 
or  less.  And  it  is  always  safe  to  offer  him  a  little  more 
than  he  will  take.  It  can't  do  him  any  harm.  Cram- 
ming him  with  hard  and  lumpy  facts,  from  so-called 
geographies  or  histories,  may  produce  mental  indiges- 


INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.  137 

tion  or  colic  ;^  but  an  idea,  an  apprehended  principle, 
never  yet  hurt  a  human  being,  and  never  will,  to  the 
latest  syllable  of  recorded  time.  For  myself,  I  would 
not  stop  short  of  teaching  a  child  the  doctrine  of  the 

'  I  think  that  the  introduction  of  the  system  of  what  I  call  mechan- 
ical education  in  the  schools  of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  as  I 
have  known  them  while  a  member  of  the  State  Board  of  Education, 
would  have  the  effect  to  crowd  out  and  extrude  from  our  common 
schools  one-half  the  geography  and  one-half  the  arithmetic  and  one- 
half  the  grammar  that  is  now  taught.  It  would  have  a  beneficial 
result  even  if  nothing  were  substituted  that  was  itself  directly 
beneficial. 

Take  the  simple  study  of  geography.  The  amount  of  gazetteer  in- 
formation that  is  crowded  into  our  grammar-school  course  is  posi- 
tively absurd.  I  remember  once  asking  ray  little  girl,  twelve  years 
old,  some  question  which  I  did  not  suppose  she  would  answer,  but 
rather  to  tease  her,  and  she  replied:  "I  can't  tell  you  that,  papa,  but 
I  can  tell  you  the  names  of  all  the  principal  towns  in  Siberia."  I 
was  at  the  time  a  professor  of  history,  and  I  didn't  know  the  name 
of  a  town  in  Siberia,  and  I  don't  want  to.  It  is  not  of  the  slightest 
consequence  for  any  literary  or  specific  purpose  that  I  should. 
Take  another  case: — I  do  not  want  to  revile  the  common  schools,  but 
I  think  it  is  fair  to  state  it; — one  of  my  boys,  twelve  years  old, 
came  home  one  day  and  said  that  the  supervisor  was  to  come  on  in 
a  few  days  and  to  examine  the  boys  in  geography;  and,  to  meet  that 
examination,  that  boy  of  twelve  got  forty-four  fair-sized  pages, 
which  he  wrote  out  himself  in  order  to  get  it  more  thoroughly,  of 
information  of  a  purely  gazetteer,  encyclopedic  character.  Thirty- 
three  cities  of  Asia  were  on  that  list,  and  that  boy  not  only  got  it  up, 
which  might  have  been  reasonable  work,  but  committed  it  to 
memory. 

Now,  such  information  is  of  no  earthly  value  whatever  to  any 
scholar  for  any  purpose,  because  no  man  can  afford  to  put  into  his 
memory  all  that  is  in  a  gazetteer.  He  has  neither  the  nerve  nor 
brain  power  to  put  it  there.  It  is  highly  artificial  work,  and  he  has 
other  needs  for  those  powers  without  straining  them  so  much  in  one 
direction.  There  is  no  psychologist  in  the  world  who  would  for  a 
moment  approve  of  such  studies  for  boys  of  twelve,  and  if  they 
could  be  extruded  from  the  common  schools  it  would  be  an  advantage 
to  the  pupils. — From  Testimony  before  the  Committee  of  tlie  Senate  of 
the  United  States  upon  the  Relations  between  Labor  and  Capital,  1885. 


138  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

persistence  of  force  through  all  its  transmutations. 
Doubtless  he  would  at  first  fail  to  apprehend  it  fully; 
yet  he  would  gather  something  from  its  familiar,  pic- 
turesque enunciation;  and,  as  the  proposition  became 
familiar  to  his  ear,  and  as  illustrations  of  the  equivalency 
of  motion,  heat,  light,  and  sound  were  multiplied  and 
repeated  to  him,  I  should  hope  that  he  would  grow  into 
an  apprehension  and  appreciation  of  this,  grand,  all- 
embracing  law. 

If  it  be  asked  of  what  advantage  would  it  be  to  the 
youthful  mind  that  it  should  be  taught  these  and  the 
like  things,  I  answer:  first,  that  if  to  observe  phe- 
nomena quickly  and  clearly,  if  to  reflect  closely  and 
justly,  if  to  acquire  an  habitual  and,  in  time,  instinctive 
disposition  to  trace  effects  to  their  causes,  if  these  things 
be  among  the  prime  objects  of  education,  comparison 
may  be  challenged  between  the  matter  of  study  that  has 
been  described  and  the  work  that  now  takes  up  two- 
thirds  of  the  time  of  the  scholar  of  the  age  we  have 
been  considering.  Secondly,  that  if  the  direct  useful- 
ness of  the  information  acquired  be  adopted  as  the  test 
of  different  systems  of  education,  the  elements  of 
geometry,  physics,  and  mechanics  have  preference,  in 
an  enormous  degree,  over  the  traditional  studies  of  the 
primary  and  grammar  schools.  But,  thirdly,  that  the 
main  argument  for  the  early  acquisition  of  these  ele- 
ments is  to  be  found  in  their  usefulness  as  a  preparation 
for  the  study  of  geometry,  physics,  and  applied  me- 
chanics in  later  years. 


INDUSTEIAL  EDUCATION.  139 

While  altering  in  a  degree  the  traditional  curriculum 
of  the  public  schools  by  the  introduction  of  the  elements 
of  geometry,  physics,  and  mechanics,  I  would  recom- 
mend the  extension  of  the  drawing-practice  of  the 
schools  even  beyond  the  point  to  which  it  is  now  carried 
in  our  most  enlightened  cities.  And  it  is  a  consideration 
of  prime  importance  in  this  connection  ihaX  great  as  is 
the  interest  awakened  by  drawing-practice,  under  the 
better  teachers,  even  as  students  are  now  prepared  for 
it  in  our  public  schools,  those  exercises  would  acquire  a 
vast  increase  of  attractiveness  from  the  studies  already 
described  in  the  elements  of  geometry,  physics,  and  me- 
chanics. The  pupil  would  in  a  higher  degree  appre- 
ciate much  that  he  was  called  to  do  in  his  drawing 
exercises,  and  would  find  a  heightened  pleasure  in  the 
practice  of  this  art  as  it  became  a  means  of  expressing 
principles  with  which  he  had  been  made  familiar.  And 
as  the  drawing  exercise  received  a  great  enhancement  of 
attractiveness  through  the  pupil's  comprehension  of  the 
principles  underlying  the  figures  and  designs  to  be  con- 
structed, so,  at  the  other  end,  would  it  receive  a  fresh 
addition  of  interest  by  being  correlated  with  the  shop- 
work  in  wood,  in  iron,  and  in  clay,  which,  according  to 
the  friends  of  industrial  education,  should  form  a  part 
of  the  exercises  of  the  public  schools. 

We  here  reach  the  last  stage  of  our  subject.  Indus- 
trial education  involves,  first,  the  teaching  of  the  ele- 
ments of  geometry,  physics,  and  mechanics;  secondly, 
drawing;  and,  thirdly,  shop  work  of  one  kind  or  another. 


j» 


140  MANUAL  EDUCATION 

During  the  past  few  years  practice  in  the  mechanic  arts, 
especially  in  wood-working,  but  also  in  forge,  foundry, 
and  lathe  work,  has  been  introduced  as  an  integral  part 
of  a  syst-em  of  education,  in  several  sections  of  the  coun- 
try. 'No  one  is  known  to  have  been  in  any  way  con- 
nected with  this  new  kind  of  teaching  who  is  not  an  en- 
thusiastic believer  in  its  beneficent  effects  at  once  upon 
the  scholar  and  upon  the  general  system  of  public  in- 
struction; while,  of  late,  converts  have  been  rapidly  made 
from  among  those  who  formerly  doubted  or  denied  the 
expediency  of  this  innovation  in  education.  The  year 
now  closing  has  seen  the  schoolroom  space,  the  apparatus 
and  machinery,  and  the  teaching  force  devoted  to  this 
work  more  than  doubled,  perhaps  we  might  say  trebled. 
The  next  year  will  undoubtedly  witness  an  even  greater 
increase.  The  thing  is  coming,  and  coming  fast,  faster 
probably  than  the  means  can  well  be  provided;  and 
doubtless  mistakes,  not  a  few,  will  be  made  in  the  haste 
to  introduce  this  kind  of  teaching. 

In  general  it  may  be  said  that  the  course  of  propaga- 
tion is  likely  to  be  from  the  high  school  downward  to 
the  grammar  and  then  to  the  elementary  schools,  and 
from  the  city  outward  through  the  small  towns  to  the 
rural  districts.  The  chief  difficulty  to  be  encountered 
will  not  be  the  difficulty  of  finding  means,  or  the  oppo- 
sition of  school  committees  or  boards  of  aldermen,  but 
the  lack  of  competent  teachers.  In  this  view  the  State 
of  Massachusetts  has  wisely  initiated  practice  in  the 
mechanic  arts  in  two  of  its  normal  schools. 


INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.  141 

At  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology,  which 
eight  years  ago/  under  the  enlightened  administration 
of  Dr.  Runkle,  established  a  school  of  the  mechanic  arts, 
the  applications  for  instructors  in  this  department  are 
already  far  in  excess  of  those  which  can  be  met.  Dr. 
Runkle  has,  within  a  few  weeks,  issued  a  pamphlet  ^ 
which  embraces  in  condensed  form  many  well-considered 
suggestions  regarding  the  organization  of  this  kind  of 
schools,  with  detailed  statements  as  to  the  equipment  of 
shops  for  instruction  in  the  mechanic  arts.  The  reports 
of  the  St.  Louis  Manual  Training  School,  under  the 
supervision  of  its  capable  and  enthusiastic  director.  Pro- 
fessor Woodward,  contain  information  of  great  value 
regarding  the  new  form  of  education. 

The  advantages  to  be  anticipated  from  the  introduc- 
tion of  training  in  the  mechanic  arts  into  the  grammar 
and  high  schools  of  the  land  are  many  and  important. 

First,  it  will  increase  the  freedom  of  industrial  move- 
ment, allowing  our  youth  as  they  leave  school  to  find  for 
themselves  places  in  the  industrial  order  with  more  of 
ease  and  assurance  than  at  present.  This,  as  has  been 
said,  is  in  contradiction  of  a  vague  popular  opinion  that 
the  proposed  system  is  in  the  direction  of  class  educa- 
tion ;  but  the  principle  is  undeniable ;  only  the  degree  of 
its  importance  can  possibly  be  disputed. 

A  lad  of  fifteen  leaving  the  grammar  school,  or  a  lad 

>  That  is,  in  1876,— Ed. 

'Report  ou  Industrial  Education,  by  John  D.  Runkle,  LL.  D., 
Walker  Professor  of  Mathematics,  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology.   Boston  :  W.  F.  Brown  &  Co. 


142  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

of  eighteen  leaving  the  high  school,  is  not  required  to 
become  a  mechanic  because  he  has  had  long  practice  in 
the  use  of  tools,  because  he  has  acquired  a  familiarity 
with  the  materials  of  construction,  because  he  has  be- 
come neat,  dexterous,  and  expert  in  manipulation,  be- 
cause he  can  make  a  working-drawing  of  a  piece  of 
machinery  or  furniture ;  because  he  has  had  his  sense  of 
form,  of  magnitude,  and  of  proportion  trained  to  the 
nicest  discrimination,  and  because  he  can  work  with  his 
eye  and  his  hand  as  well  as  with  his  brain,  and  with  all 
of  these  in  the  closest  cooperation.  But  if  he  is  to  be- 
come a  mechanic,  he  will  have  a  much  wider  choice 
between  individual  trades,  by  reason  of  these  things; 
and  again,  when  he  has  chosen  his  trade,  he  can  acquire 
the  special  knowledge  and  the  special  skill  requisite 
thereto  in  one-half  the  time  which  a  mere  apprentice 
would  take,  and  he  will  acquire  them,  moreover,  to  much 
better  effect;  while,  still  again,  he  will  be  a  workman 
who,  after  a  few  years  of  practice,  will  be  fit,  by  reason 
of  ability  to  make  working-drawings,  of  knowledge  of 
mathematics  and  mechanical  principles,  and  of  superior 
mental  training,  to  be  promoted  to  the  post  of  foreman 
or  superintendent  of  construction;  or  he  may  set  up  for 
himself  as  contractor  or  master,  with  a  prospect  of  suc- 
cess far  exceeding  that  of  one  of  equal  natural  abilities 
who  has  enjoyed  only  the  special  training  of  a  single 
trade. 

Secondly,  so  far  as  the  graduates  of  the  reformed 
grammar  and  high  schools  are  not  to  become  mechanics, 


INDUSTBIAL  EDUCATION.  143 

they  will  certainly  be  no  worse  off,  by  reason  of  this 
training;  but  in  many  ways  they  will  be  the  better  quali- 
fied, even  in  commercial  pursuits  or  in  clerical  capaci- 
ties in  connection  with  manufacturing  or  railroad  enter- 
prises, to  make  themselves  useful  to  their  employers 
from  their  manual  dexterity,  the  capability  of  using 
tools,  and  the  special  knowledge  acquired  in  school.  But 
far  more  than  this  will  be  the  advantage  derived  from 
the  training  of  the  perceptive  powers,  the  formation  of 
the  habit  of  observation,  and  the  development  of  the 
executive  faculty,  the  power,  that  is,  of  doing  things  as 
distinguished  from  thinking  or  talking  or  writing  about 
them.  To  these  the  traditional  curriculum  of  the 
schools  fails  to  minister  in  the  smallest  degree;  and  the 
longer  mnemonics,  analytics,  and  dialectics  are  exclu- 
sively pursued,  the  farther  is  the  student  carried  from  the 
temper  and  qualities  of  mind  which  achieve  success,  ex- 
cept in  a  few  closely  restricted  and  already  overcrowded 
professions.  It  is  the  sense  of  this  which  leads  so  many 
parents  to  withdraw  their  children  at  an  early  age,  re- 
ducing the  number  who  go  forward  from  the  grammar 
to  the  high  school  to  a  petty  fraction  of  the  whole 
number. 

With  the  school  exercises  modified  and  diversified  as 
has  been  proposed,  I  sincerely  believe  that  the  average 
period  of  attendance  would  be  at  once  appreciably  in- 
creased, and  that  parents  would  withdraw  their  children 
only  at  the  demand  of  pecuniary  necessities  which  could 
not  be  denied,  and  not,  as  so  largely  now,  because  they 


144  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

feel  that  the  school  is  doing  nothing  practically  useful 
for  their  children,  and,  indeed,  that  the  longer  they  stay, 
after  fifteen,  the  less  will  they  be  fitted  for  the  work  of 
life. 

Thirdly,  the  introduction  of  shop  work  into  the  pub- 
lic system  of  education  cannot  fail  to  have  a  most  bene- 
ficial influence  in  promoting  a  respect  for  labor  and  in 
overcoming  the  false  and  pernicious  passion  of  our  young 
people  for  crowding  themselves  into  overdone  and 
underpaid  departments,  where  they  may  escape  manual 
exertion  at  almost  any  sacrifice.  This  tendency  of  the 
times  has  been  loudly  complained  of,  but  how  have  those 
a  right  to  complain  who  support  the  old  order  of  things 
under  which  all  the  praise  and  all  the  prizes  of  the 
school  are  bestowed  upon  glibness  of  speech,  retentive- 
ness  of  memory,  ease  or  force  of  declamation,  and  skill 
in  dialectics?  If  the  authority  of  the  State  and  the  in- 
fluence of  the  teacher  combine  to  set  up  such  a  standard, 
what  wonder  that  the  pupil  accepts  the  same  view  of 
what  is  admirable  and  desirable,  holds  other  qualities  in 
little  esteem,  and  deems  himself  too  fine  for  a  common 
trade  and  a  humble  calling?  Let  the  State  honor  labor 
in  the  school;  let  some  of  the  praise  and  some  of  the 
prizes  go  to  neatness  of  manipulation,  skill  in  the  use  of 
tools,  taste  in  design,  patience  and  ingenuity  in  execu- 
tion; let  the  pupil  see  his  master,  now  and  then,  with 
his  coat  off  and  a  paper  cap  on  his  head,  teaching  the 
use  of  the  plane  and  the  lathe;  give  the  boy  to  know  the 
delight  of  seeing  things  grow  and  take  shape  under  his 


INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.  145 

hands,  and  it  requires  no  prophet  to  assure  us  that  our 
young  people  will  come  to  look  on  life  very  differently 
and  much  more  wisely. 

Fourthly,  the  consideration  which  weighs  more  than 
any  other,  in  my  mind,  is  that  the  introduction  of  shop 
work  into  the  public  schools,  closely  affiliated  with  exer- 
cises in  drawing  and  design,  will  give  a  place,  where 
now  there  is  no  place  at  all  or  only  a  most  uncomfortable 
one,  to  those  boys  who  are  strong  in  perception,  apt  ia 
manipulation,  and  correct  in  the  interpretation  of  phe- 
nomena, but  who  are  not  good  at  memorizing  or  rehears- 
ing the  opinions  and  statements  of  others,  or  who,  by 
diffidence,  slowness  of  speech,  or  awkwardness  of  mental 
conformation,  are  unfitted  for  mental  gymnastics.  It 
is  mighty  little  that  the  ordinary  grammar  or  high  school 
does  at  present  for  scholars  of  these  classes.  2!^ot  only 
do  they,  at  the  best,  get  little  personal  pleasure  from  their 
work  and  receive  little  of  the  commendation  of  the 
teacher,  but,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  they  are 
■written  down  blockheads  at  the  start,  and  have  their 
whole  school  life  turned  to  shame  and  bitterness.  And 
yet  it  not  unfrequently  happens  that  the  boy  who  is  so 
regarded  because  he  cannot  master  an  artificial  style  of 
grammatical  analysis,  isn't  worth  a  cent  for  giving  a  list 
of  the  kings  of  England,  doesn't  know  and.  doesn't  care 
what  are  the  principal  productions  of  Borneo,  has  a  bet- 
ter pair  of  eyes,  a  better  pair  of  hands,  and,  even  by  the 
standards  of  the  merchant,  the  manufacturer,  and  the 
railroad  president,  a  better  head,  than  his  teacher. 


146  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

I  desire  not  to  exaggerate;  I  wish  to  speak  with  the 
utmost  seriousness  and  in  strict  truthfulness.  Of  how 
much  advantage  is  it  to  a  scholar  in  the  average  gram- 
mar school  of  Boston  or  New  York  or  Chicago,  in  doing 
his  work  or  in  earning  the  praise  of  his  teacher,  that  he 
has  a  quick  perception  of  form  and  color;  that  he  sees 
everything  presented  to  his  view  at  once  broadly  and 
particularly,  his  eye  taking  in  all  the  features  of  an  ob- 
ject in  their  due  order  and  proportion,  his  mind  justly 
interpreting  the  significance  of  each  and  every  feature 
by  turns  and  in  the  whole;  that  he  has  a  subtle  touch, 
great  patience  under  vexation,  an  ingenious  and  invent- 
ive mind?  There  are  as  many  boys  in  our  schools  of 
whom  the  above  can  be  said,  as  there  are  of  boys  who 
are  quick  to  memorize  and  rehearse  the  opinions  and 
statements  of  others,  or  who  are  strong  and  lively  in  the 
gymnastics  of  arithmetic  and  of  grammar.  There  are 
not  only  as  many  of  the  former  boys  as  of  the  latter,  but 
they  are  quite  as  deserving  of  sympathy  and  respect,  be- 
sides being  rather  better  qualified  to  become  of  use  in 
the  industrial  and  social  order.  And  yet  for  that  class 
of  boys  the  school  offers  almost  nothing  upon  which 
they  can  employ  these  priceless  powers.  They  may,  by 
laboring  painfully  over  the  prescribed  but  uncongenial 
exercises,  escape  the  stigma  of  being  blockheads;  but 
they  can  never  do  very  well;  they  will  always  be  at  a 
disadvantage  in  comparison  with  boys  of  the  other  class; 
they  will  know  nothing  of  the  joys  of  commendation; 
and  it  is  most  fortunate  if  they  do  not  become  dis- 


INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.  147 

couraged,  indifferent,  and  in  time  careless  or  even  reck- 
less of  their  standing.  Such  boys  are  practically 
plowed  under,  in  our  schools,  as  not  worth  harvest- 
ing. The  teacher  may  be  ever  so  pitiful  and  patient; 
that  matters  something  so  far  as  the  child's  happiness  is 
concerned,  but,  so  long  as  he  is  kept  wholly  at  exercises 
for  which  he  is  not  by  nature  qualified,  it  makes  little 
difference  as  to  his  chances  of  success  as  a  scholar. 

The  introduction  of  practice  in  the  mechanic  arts 
would  strike  a  responsive  chord  in  the  hearts  of  all  boys 
of  the  class  I  have  so  inadequately  described;  it  would 
at  once  give  them  something  to  do  in  which  they  could 
excel;  it  would  quicken  their  interest  in  the  school;  it 
would  save  their  self-respect;  to  many  it  would  open  a 
door  into  practical  life. 

For  a  partial  illustration  of  these  effects,  let  me  refer 
to  the  introduction  of  drawing  into  the  public  schools, 
already  so  widely  accomplished.  If  the  acquirement  of 
this  art  were  absolutely  of  no  value,  if  the  training  of 
the  eye  and  hand  involved  were  put  out  of  account,  I 
fully  believe  tha.t,  in  spite  of  the  very  shabby  way  in 
which  this  subject  has  generally  been  taught  heretofore, 
drawing  in  the  schools  has  repaid  its  coet  tenfold, 
simply  in  the  opportunity  it  has  given  to  a  host  of 
scholars  to  do  something  well,  to  their  own  satisfaction, 
to  the  commendation  of  their  teachers,  and  to  the  ad- 
miration of  their  mates. 

Here  is  a  little  fellow  who  has  no  aptitude  for  the 
traditional  studies  of  the  schoolroom.     He  has  either 


148  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

given  way  after  a  short  struggle  to  a  feeling  that  he  is 
a  dunce  anyhow,  and  that  it  is  of  no  use  to  try;  or,  after 
a  longer  and  harder  struggle,  he  has  succumbed  to  a  still 
more  bitter  and  lasting  discouragement.  He  has  be- 
come accustomed  to  be  blamed  at  school  and  at  home  for 
his  low  standing;  he  has  ceased  to  look  for  words  of 
approbation;  he  has  learned  to  expect  a  look  of  sadness 
or  of  anger  on  his  father's  face  as  his  monthly  card  is 
presented. 

But  now  a  new  exercise  is  introduced  into  the  school, 
and,  after  the  inevitable  blottings  and  smearings  of  the 
first  trials,  it  comes  one  day  to  the  comprehension  of  the 
teacher  that  this  boy  has  executed  his  work  better  than 
any  other  scholar;  has  done  best  of  all  something  which 
by  authority  has  been  pronounced  worth  doing.  For 
the  first  time  that  lad,  who  has  all  the  time  been  strug- 
gling with  a  hopeless  incapacity  for  identifying  "  apposi- 
tive  modifiers "  and  "  cognate  adjectives,"  hears  the 
sweet  and  pleasant  voice  of  praise,  sees  the  admiring 
glances  of  his  comrades  fall  on  him,  yes,  on  him!  and 
feels  the  pulse  of  ambition  throb  at  his  temples. 

With  what  anticipations  of  pleasure  will  this  lad  here- 
after await  the  signal  to  take  up  drawing,  with  what 
pains  will  he  execute  his  work,  with  what  pride  hand  in 
his  faultless  sheets!  How  changed  to  him  hence- 
forth is  the  schoolroom;  how  different,  even,  sounds  the 
school  bell  in  the  morning!  If  the  introduction  of 
drawing  has  done  so  much  for  many  a  boy,  how  much 
more  fully  and  completely  will  the  needs  of  this  class  of 


INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.  149 

youths  be  met  by  the  introduction  of  shop  work  m.  its 
various  branches  of  carpentry,  forge,  foundry,  and  lathe 
work,  in  intimate  and  vital  relations  with  drawing  and 
with  the  elements  of  geometry,  physics,  and  mechanics! 
I  might  dwell  on  other  considerations;  upon  the  im- 
pulse to  be  communicated  to  invention  and  discovery, 
upon  the  disclosure,  here  and  there,  of  rare  mechanical 
genius,  which,  under  the  old  system  of  education,  might 
have  been  hopelessly  lost  in  a  dreary  wilderness  of 
words;  upon  the  value  of  the  arts  acquired  in  saving  dis- 
repair within  the  home,  enabling  the  thousand  needed 
strokes  of  the  hammer  to  be  well  and  promptly  given, 
securing  the  insertion  of  the  nail  in  time  that  saves  nine; 
upon  the  virtue  which  a  general  mechanical  education 
of  the  people  would  have  in  preserving  and  exalting  the 
priceless  sense  of  social  decency  which  keeps  the  fence 
along  the  village  street  in  order,  the  gate  hung,  the 
glass  set,  the  shutter  in  place;  but  perhaps  I  have 
already  said  enough  to  introduce  the  discussion  of  the 
question  of  Industrial  Education, 


A  PLEA  FOR   INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 
IN  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS 

1887 


Address  BEroRB  the  Conference  op  Associated 
Charities  of  the  City  of  Boston,  February  10,  1887. 


A  PLEA  FOE  INDUSTEIAL  EDUCATION  IN  THE 
PUBLIC  SCHOOLS. 

Those  of  us  who  attended  the  conference  of  January 
20th  heard  some  of  the  strong  arguments  presented  by 
the  learned  Secretary^  of  the  State  Board  of  Education  in 
opposition  to  the  general  views  and  purposes  entertained 
by  those  who  favor  the  incorporation  of  more  or  less  of 
so-called  Industrial  Education  with  the  public-school 
system  of  the  Commonwealth.  While  objections  from 
such  a  source  could  hardly  be  welcome  to  those  who  are 
deeply  interested  in  the  projected  reforms,  there  should 
yet  be  no  resentment  at  their  being  offered.  If  our  pur- 
poses and  plans  are  in  general  sound  and  wholesome, 
they  will  bear  challenge  and  criticism,  and  will  be  the 
better  for  it.  Discussion — direct,  sincere,  and  earnest 
discussion — ^is  in  the  interest  of  the  very  cause  itself; 
and  the  sharper  the  challenge,  and  the  more  cogent  the 
presentation  of  any  and  all  objections,  the  better  for  us, 
if  indeed  we  are  right  on  the  main  issue. 

Especially  is  it  the  duty  of  the  Secretary  of  the  State 
Board  of  Education  to  stand  up  for  the  integrity  and 
purity  of  the  schools  of  Massachusetts,  if  he  deems  them 
threatened  from  any  quarter;  and  in  his  main  conten- 
tion, Dr.  Dickinson  is  unquestionably  right.     The  pri- 

'  Hon.  J.  W.  Dickinson,  LL.  D.     Resigning  in  1894,  he  was  suc- 
ceeded by  the  present  Secretary,  Hon.  Frank  A.  Hill. — Ed. 

153 


154  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

mary  purpose  of  our  public-school  system  was  education; 
and  it  cannot  in  any  considerable  degree  be  made  to 
serve  any  other  purpose  than  education,  without  a  per- 
version of  agency  and  almost  an  abuse  of  trust.  The 
good  old  principle  that  education,  so  far  as  the  public 
schools  are  concerned,  should  be  general,  not  special; 
should  be  liberal,  not  technical;  should  be  directed  to  the 
complete  and  harmonious  development  of  the  faculties 
of  the  child,  and  not  to  the  mere  acquisition  of  arts  and 
knacks  which  can  easily  be  turned  to  practical  uses — 
this  principle  I  believe  to  be  as  true,  and  as  important  to 
the  integrity  of  our  school  system,  as  at  any  time  in  our 
history. 

And  I  must  beg  you  to  excuse  me  for  going  farther 
and  for  saying  frankly  in  this  presence,  remembering 
that  I  am  addressing  a  Conference  of  Charities,  that  the 
public  schools  should  be  expected  to  do  little  directly  in 
the  way  of  relieving  the  community  from  the  burden  of 
pauperism.  The  best  that  the  schools  can  do  for  the 
interests  which  you  have  so  much  at  heart  is  to  perform 
their  proper  educational  work  with  thoroughness,  with 
efficiency,  with  enthusiasm.  While  I  am  far  from  say- 
ing that  no  burdens  should  be  put  upon  the  public 
schools,  for  the  general  good,  yet  I  believe  that  the  prin- 
ciple which  has  been  laid  down  should  be  strongly  ad- 
hered to,  in  good  faith  and  good  feeling;  and  that  those 
who  propose  any  exception  thereto  should  be  required 
to  prove  their  case,  against  a  strong  presumption  in  favor 
of  the  purely  educational  character  of  all  school  work. 


A  PLEA  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.  156 

While  thus  amply  conceding  that  which  Dr.  Dickin- 
son claims  regarding  the  proper  purpose  and  scope  of  our 
schools,  issue  may  fairly  be  taken  with  him  as  to  the 
educational  character  of  the  proposed  new  studies  and 
exercises.  In  order  to  clear  the  ground  for  such  a  dis- 
cussion it  may  appear  not  pedantic  and  not  unreasonable 
to  go  back  thirty  or  forty  years  in  our  history.  Per- 
haps, also,  it  may  not  appear  impertinent  to  offer  here  a 
piece  of  personal  experience.  I  entered  the  schools  of 
Massachusetts  at  four  years  of  age,  and  left  them  at  fif- 
teen to  go  to  college.  In  all  the  interval  I  do  not  re- 
member ever  to  have  been  set  to  any  study  or  exercise 
which  I  could  not  have  done  just  as  well  if  bom  without 
hands,  except  solely  for  the  convenience  of  holding  a 
book  and  turning  over  its  leaves,  or  of  writing  on  paper, 
slate,  or  blackboard;  which  I  could  not  have  done  just 
as  well  if  afflicted  with  total  blindness,  except  solely  for 
the  greater  difficulty  of  learning  lessons  by  having  them 
read  to  me ;  indeed,  but  for  this,  a  blind  boy  would  have 
had  an  advantage  over  me,  as  being  less  subject  to  have 
his  attention  distracted  by  surrounding  objects.  I  do 
not  recall  any  exercise  which  I  could  not  have  performed 
equally  well  without  the  use  of  hearing,  except  only  for 
purposes  of  communication  with  the  teacher;  and,  in- 
deed, a  deaf  child  would,  but  for  that,  have  had  an  ad- 
vantage over  me,  as  being  less  subject  to  interruption  or 
distraction  from  without. 

IN'ow,  who  will  say  that  there  can  be  a  complete  edu- 
cation of  the  child  where  the  senses  are  thus  neglected? 


166  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

Let  us  not,  even  for  a  good  object,  exaggerate  the  part 
performed  by  the  perceptive  powers;  but  we  may  right- 
fully insist  that  there  should  be,  in  every  day  and  in 
almost  every  hour  of  school  life,  exercises  which  call  the 
senses  into  active  operation  and  hold  them  in  strict  atten- 
tion, while  from  above,  the  mind,  their  master,  guide, 
and  helper,  observes,  records,  and  interprets  all  that  the 
senses  have  to  tell/ 

But  this  was  not  all  that  was  lacking  in  the  old  educa- 
tion. While  the  memory  was  fostered  into  an  abnormal 
and  monstrous  growth,  nothing  was  offered  which  even 
tended  to  train  the  judgment.  Indeed,  the  enormous 
body  of  facts  which  the  pupils  were  expected  to  receive 
and  cherish,  solely  upon  the  authority  of  others,  consti- 
tuted a  direct  discouragement  to  the  faculty  of  judgment 
and  to  the  spirit  of  self-reliance. 

'  The  great  educational  value  of  manual  training  lies  in  the  method 
of  instruction  used.  It  is  the  laboratory,  or  workshop,  method, — the 
same  method  that  has  proved  so  effectual  of  late  years  in  reforming 
the  teaching  of  chemistry,  physics,  and  the  natural  sciences  in  our 
high  schools  and  colleges. 

This  workshop  or  laboratory  method  of  instruction  brings  the 
learner  face  to  face  with  the  facts  of  nature.  His  mind  in- 
creases in  knowledge  by  direct  personal  experience  with  forms  of 
matter,  and  manifestations  of  force.  No  mere  words  intervene. 
Abstract  definitions,  statements,  and  rules  are  put  aside.  They  are 
not  recognized  as  knowledge,  but  only  as  the  frames  or  cases  into 
which  knowledge  can  be  put  when  once  it  is  got.  I  firmly  believe 
that  the  introduction  of  the  manual-training  element  into  our  school 
work  will  promote  still  further  this  salutary  reform;  that  it  will  tend 
to  abolish  the  mere  nominal  teaching,  of  which  there  is  yet  too  much, 
and  replace  it  with  real  teaching, — a  teaching  that  seeks  to  develop 
mental  power,  rather  than  to  load  the  memory  with  words,  to  make 
the  pupil  a  possessor  of  the  solid  merchandise  of  knowledge  rather 
than  of  its  empty  packing-cases. — Edwin  P.  Seaver,  Superintendent 
of  Schools,  Boston. 


A  PLEA  FOB  INDUSTBIAL  EDUCATION.         157 

Moreover,  there  was  absolutely  nothing  in  the  school 
studies  and  exercises  of  those  days  which  tended  to  direct 
and  develop  the  executive  faculty;  the  power,  that  is,  of 
doing  things,  as  distinguished  from  thinking  about  them, 
talking  about  them,  writing  about  them.  No  one 
familiar  with  the  laws  of  mind  will  be  disposed  to  deny 
that  there  is  at  least  a  tendency,  in  the  protracted  study 
of  any  subject,  apart  from  putting  that  study  to  a  prac- 
tical use,  toward  producing  a  partial  paralysis  of  the 
will,  shown  in  a  disposition  to  procrastinate,  to  multiply 
distinctions,  and  to  stand  shivering  on  the  brink  of 
action.  Finally,  and  worst  of  all,  the  school  studies  and 
exercises  of  that  age  gave  no  play  to  that  constructive 
passion  which  is  inherent  in  every  healthy  child's  mind 
— a  passion  which  is  so  strong  that  it  is  readily  per- 
verted, through  lack  of  opportunity  and  exercise,  into 
the  passion  for  destruction,  just  as  every  good  thing  is 
susceptible  of  perversion  into  an  agency  of  evil  or  mis^ 
chief.  When,  in  1843,  my  father  for  the  first  time 
visited  Europe,  he  brought  home  with  him  a  box  of  toys, 
which  bore  this  inscription: 

'*  Boys  in  Holland  love  to  make 
What  boys  in  England  love  to  break," 

It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  the  boy  who  breaks  is  the  same 
boy,  ill  taught  and  ill  trained,  as  the  boy  who  makes; 
and  that  the  boy  who  breaks  most  is  the  boy  who,  if  his 
energies  were  properly  directed,  would  make  most. 
Such  was  the  New  England  school  of  forty  and  thirty 


168  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

years  ago;^  but  the  results,  in  education,  were  not  so  bad 
as  might  be  conjectured  from  this  rude  description.  A 
great  majority  of  our  people  lived  in  isolated  farm- 
houses, or  in  small  villages,  where  access  to  the  land  was 
easy.  Out  of  school  every  boy  had  his  stint  of  work  and 
his  opportunities  for  play  in  the  barn,  over  the  fields, 
through  the  woods,  where  his  senses  were  continually 
quickened,  the  faculty  of  judgment  called  into  exercise, 
the  executive  power  strengthened,  the  constructive  pas- 

'  In  the  early  days  of  the  Republic,  when  our  system  of  public 
education  was  still  in  its  infancy,  mental  and  manual  education  were 
much  more  intimately  connected  than  at  the  present  day.  The  in- 
dustries of  the  country  were  still  in  a  crude  state,  agriculture  and  a 
few  only  of  the  more  necessary  mechanic  trades  having  any  exist- 
ence. These  trades  demanded  but  little  artistic  taste,  and  not  the 
highest  manual  skill;  but  the  educational  needs  of  the  time  were 
quite  well  met  in  the  apprenticeship  system,  which  existed  then  in 
its  best  form.  The  master  became  responsible,  in  an  important  sense, 
for  the  mental  and  moral  well  being  of  the  apprentice,  besides  teach- 
ing him  the  manual  of  his  trade,  with  such  knowledge  of  the  theory 
and  such  experience  as  he  was  able  to  impart.  By  his  attendance  for 
three  or  four  months  of  each  year  during  his  apprenticeship  upon 
the  district  school  the  mental  culture  of  the  apprentice  was  not  en- 
tirely discontinued;  and  thus,  by  alternating  between  the  school  and 
the  shop,  his  mental  and  manual  education  were  never  entirely  di- 
vorced, but  each  in  an  important  sense  aided  the  other.  During  this 
formative  period  of  the  student's  life  one  set  of  habits  was  not 
formed  to  the  exclusion  of  others  which  in  the  end  might  prove 
more  important. 

As  time  passed,  a  more  marked  separation  between  mental  and 
manual  education  began  to  take  place.  The  school  gradually  im- 
proved. Better  methods  of  teaching  and  a  larger  number  of  subjects 
were  introduced,  and  a  higher  standard  set,  all  demanding  more 
time  from  the  pupil.  But  quite  as  marked  a  change  was  going  on 
in  the  industries.  Increased  demand  led  to  competition,  to  the  in- 
vention of  special  tools  to  cheapen  production,  to  a  greater  subdi- 
vision of  labor,  and  to  the  concentration  of  the  individual  upon  a 
very  narrow  range  of  work.    Thus  the  apprenticeship  system  for 


A  PLEA  FOB  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.         159 

sion  given  scope  and  swing.  By  these  means,  accessible 
to  all,  much  was  done  to  supply  the  deficiencies  and  to 
offset  the  evil  tendencies  of  the  strictly  school  educa- 
tion. It  would  be  idle  to  say  that  the  senses,  the  faculty 
of  judgment,  the  executive  power,  the  constructive  pas- 
sion, can  be  as  fully  and  as  harmoniously  developed 
and  trained  in  unregulated  play,  or  in  ill-regulated  and 
unsupervised  work,  as  they  might  be  in  well-considered 
studies  and  exercises  directed  by  capable  teachers;  but, 

learning  a  trade  in  its  old  and  best  form  has  passed  away,  never  to 
return.  As  it  exists  to-day,  it  is  an  advantage  to  neither  party.  The 
apprentice  can  only  learn  a  narrow  specialty,  so  narrow,  as  a  rule, 
that  its  only  value  to  him  is  the  meager  pittance  which  he  can  earn 
from  day  to  day,  but  at  the  sacrifice  of  any  further  educational  ad- 
vantages; while  the  master  finds  it  for  his  interest  to  pay  for  the  skill 
he  needs,  rather  than  put  into  his  carefully  adjusted  chain  of  opera- 
tions a  weak  and  nearly  useless  link.  In  this  way  the  school  and  the 
shop  have  become  so  widely  separated  that  they  are  no  longer  mutual 
helps,  as  in  past  times,  in  developing  the  highest  capacity  or  the 
highest  manhood.  The  student  who  enters  the  shop  at  fifteen  for  a 
three  or  four  years'  apprenticeship  seldom  returns  to  the  school; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  student  who  completes  his  high-school 
course  at  eighteen  seldom  willingly  enters  the  shop  as  an  apprentice, 
with  the  intention  of  becoming  a  skilled  mechanic  and  earning  a 
livelihood  by  manual  labor.  His  twelve  or  fourteen  years  of  mental 
school-work,  whether  highly  successful  or  not,  have  through  habit, 
if  in  no  other  way,  unfitted  him  for  all  manual  work,  even  if  he  has 
not  in  many  ways  been  taught  to  despise  such  labor.  Thus  it  hap- 
pens that  to-day  educators,  law-makers,  philanthropists,  and  all 
interested  in  the  highest  good  of  the  largest  number  of  the  people,  or 
in  the  best  development  of  our  growing  and  varied,  industries,  are 
looking  for  the  remedy  through  education,  not  of  the  head  alone,  but 
of  the  head  and  hand  combined  in  the  same  system,  in  order  that  the 
education  may  lead  each  pupil  to  some  definite  end,  or  directly  to 
the  threshold  of  some  special  pursuit;  that  the  student's  skill  of  head 
and  hand  combined  shall  have  some  small  commercial  value  when 
he  has  completed  his  prescribed  course  of  study. — Professor  J.  D. 
Bunkle  :  Report  of  tJie  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Education, 1^1^11. 


160  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

clearly,  what  the  boys  of  forty  and  thirty  years  ago 
enjoyed  in  this  way  was  vastly  better  than  nothing. 

This  last,  namely,  nothing,  is  about  what  the  greater 
part  of  the  boys  of  to-day  enjoy  in  these  respects.  The 
majority  of  our  people  now  reside  in  cities  or  large 
towns.  The  boy,  when  out  of  school,  can  no  longer  re- 
sort to  the  carpenter's  bench  in  the  bam;  for  there  is  no 
bam,  not  even  a  wood-shed — only  a  coal-cellar.  He 
may  at  times  be  found  in  a  vacant,  unfilled  lot,  having  a 
very  poor  time  playing  a  very  poor  game  of  ball;  now 
and  then  he  may  make  a  laborious  expedition  to  some 
park  or  skating-pond  for  amusement;  but  during  the 
most  of  the  time  he  has  no  resort  outside  the  house 
except  the  sidewalk. 

Even  in  the  country  the  state  of  things  has  greatly 
changed  within  the  last  forty  and  twenty  years.  For- 
merly the  population  was  almost  entirely  of  native  I^ew 
England  stock  possessing  wonderful  dexterity,  great 
inventive  power,  and  a  mechanical  insight  which 
amounted  to  genius.  At  the  same  time,  the  mechanic 
arts,  and  even  the  factory  industries,  were  carried  on  in 
such  a  way  that  almost  every  person  employed  might  be 
regarded  as  a  skilled  workman.  How  great  the  change! 
To-day  these  regions  are  peopled  by  tens  of  thousands  of 
Irish  and  French-Canadians,  who  have  inherited  little 
mechanical  insight,  and  almost  no  inventive  power,  and 
have  themselves  had  small  training  in  the  arts  of  in- 
dustry. The  specialization  of  manufactures  has  been 
carried  so  far  that,  in  some  departments,  an  operative 


A  PLEA  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.         161 

often  need  not  be  a  meclianic  in  any  sense  of  that  term, 
using  only  a  single  tool  and  performing  only  a  single 
simple  operation  from  one  year's  end  to  another.  Even 
the  mechanic  arts  have  been  differentiated,  until  indi- 
vidual skill  has  largely  gone  out  of  them.  The  car- 
penter of  the  old  days  made  sash,  doors,  and  blinds;  he 
planed,  matched,  and  grooved  his  boards;  he  built  his 
stairways;  he  did  a  hundred  things  requiring  dexterity 
and  fine  workmanship.  To-day  sash,  doors,  and  blinds 
are  made  in  large  factories,  wholesale;  boards  come 
planed  and  matched  by  steam;  stairways  are  built  at 
central  points,  on  specifications  furnished,  and  are 
shipped  ready  to  be  put  up.  The  old-fashioned  carpen- 
ter has  almost  disappeared. 

Such,  to  a  great  extent,  are  the  fathers  of  the  boys 
who  now  attend  the  country  schools  of  New  England. 
Few  of  them  are  capable  of  giving  their  children  that 
instruction  in  mechanic  arts  which  every  father  in  the 
olden  time  gave  his  boys  as  a  matter  of  course.  Such, 
and  so  extensive,  have  been  the  changes  in  the  social 
conditions  of  our  people.  Meanwhile,  it  is  fair  to  say, 
the  schools  have  not  stood  still;  but  have  in  no  small 
degree  expanded  their  courses  and  changed  their 
methods,  to  meet  the  new  wants  of  the  community.  In 
the  country  districts,  indeed,  the  studies  and  exercises 
remain  substantially  as  they  were;  but  in  the  cities  and 
larger  towns  there  has  been  much  improvement.  For 
the  younger  children,  the  blessed  kindergarten  has 
come;  and,  although  the  imported  article  will  bear  con- 


162  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

siderable  modifications,  as  assuming  an  impossible  child- 
ishness,— a  childishness  of  which  no  American  child,  at 
any  rate,  was  ever  guilty, — the  kindergajrten  has  come 
to  stay/  Although  thus  far,  unfortunately,  remaining 
mainly  outside  the  public-school  system,  its  methods 
have  not  a  little  modified  the  ways  of  teaching  in  the 
lower  grades  of  the  public  schools;  while  in  the  upper 
rooms,  the  objective  study  of  natural  science,  with 
plants,  minerals,  and  examples  of  animal  life  in  the 
hands  of  the  teacher  and  of  the  pupils,  is  introducing 
some  of  those  elements  which  were  most  painfully  lack- 
ing in  the  olden  time.  Moreover,  the  general  adoption 
of  drawing  *  as  a  school  exercise  is  doing  much  to  quicken 

'  The  kindergarten  not  only  gives  the  young  children  a  good  start 
intellectually,  but  it  also  has  a  very  marked  and  beneficial  effect  on 
them  morally.  The  subsequent  instruction  and  discipline  in  the  pri- 
mary schools  would  be  much  easier,  and  the  progress  in  knowledge 
much  more  satisfactory,  if  all  pupils  first  took  the  kindergarten 
instruction. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  go  into  a  theoretical  argument  to  prove  the 
benefits  of  kindergarten  training.  "We  have  the  practical  demonstra- 
tion in  Mrs.  Shaw's  kindergartens  in  this  city.  It  is  chiefly  from  my 
study  of  these  in  actual  operation  that  I  have  come  to  believe 
that  we  need  many  more  of  them — indeed,  that  the  kindergarten 
ought  to  be  recognized  and  established  as  a  part  of  the  system  of 
public  instruction  in  this  city.  There  are  other  large  cities  where 
this  has  been  done,  to  the  great  benefit  of  the  youngest  children.  I 
am  not  without  hope  that  this  great  improvement  may  ere  long  be 
brought  to  pass  in  this  city. — Edwin  P.  Seaver,  Superintendent  of 
Schools,  Boston. 

^  Drawing,  in  one  form  or  another,  has  won  its  way  into  nearly  all 
schools  in  the  older  countries,  and  is  making  rapid  progress  in  our 
own.  While  it  is  the  universal  language  of  handicraft,  bringing  the 
industrial  ends  of  the  earth  together,  just  as  the  higher  and  finer  arts 
express  the  feelings  and  sentiments  of  our  common  humanity,  it  has 
at  the  same  time  justified  itself  in  all  countries  as  a  most  valuable 


A  PLEA  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  EBTJCATION.         163 

the  geometric  sense  of  the  pupils,  to  cultivate  their  per- 
ception of  form,  and  to  stimulate  the  interest  of  large 
classes  of  children  who  find  little  to  enjoy  in  the  tradi- 
tional studies  of  grammar,  arithmetic,  and  geography. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  we  part  company  with  Dr. 
Dickinson.  He  would  trust  to  the  continued  use  of 
drawing  and  to  the  increased  use  of  science-teaching  to 
train  the  senses,  to  cultivate  the  habit  of  observation,  to 
strengthen  the  judgment,  and  to  make  the  hand  and  eye 
more  ready  and  faithful  servants  of  the  mind.  The  use 
of  tools  he  deprecates  as  injurious  to  the  proper  pur- 
poses and  as  disparaging  to  the  dignity  of  the  public 
schools;  while  he  admits  sewing  and  cooking  only  as 
burdens  which  the  schools  may  be  asked  to  carry  for  the 
general  good.  Most  of  us,  on  the  contrary,  believe  that 
the  use  of  tools  in  appropriate  form  and  degree,  and  the 
teaching  of  cooking  and  sewing  are  as  truly  educational 
as  any,  even  the  most  approved,  of  the  familiar  features 
of  the  public  school;  that  they  supply  desirable  elements 

auxiliary  to  purely  scholastic  studies,  for  developing  the  intellect, 
and  for  widening  and  deepening  the  capacity  and  power  of  the  indi- 
vidual. Nor  would  it  be  possible  to  estimate  the  value  to  the  indus- 
tries of  the  world,  of  this  general  cultivation  of  the  intellect  and  taste 
through  drawing;  and  yet  drawing  is  essentially  a  manual  art.  What- 
ever of  mental  discipline  or  cultivation  of  taste  it  offers  can  only 
come  through  the  training  of  the  hand  as  the  medium.  Little  value 
would  be  derived  by  teaching  drawing  as  a  science  without  corre- 
sponding practice.  It  has  its  body  of  principles;  but  they  can  be 
better  brought  to  the  student's  attention,  and  more  clearly  set  forth, 
in  connection  with  a  well-arranged  and  progressive  course  in 
manipulation. 

The  same  good  educational  results  will  surely  follow  from  the 
systematic  teaching  of  other  manual  arts. — Professor  J.  D.  Runkle. 


164  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

which  can  be  obtained  at  all,  or  which  can  be  obtained 
as  well,  from  no  other  source;  and  that  they  are  not  only 
compatible  with  the  integrity  and  dignity  of  the  school 
system,  but  that  they  promise  greatly  to  increase  the 
general  interest  in  the  schools,  if  not  to  become  the  very 
salvation  of  the  school  system  itself;  while  the  incidental 
advantages  resulting  therefrom,  in  raising  the  industrial 
quality  of  our  people,  in  creating  respect  for  labor,  in 
quickening  the  sense  of  social  decency,  in  securing  a 
greater  economy  of  the  means  and  the  resources  of  the 
very  poor,  and  in  promoting  good  citizenship  generally, 
are,  as  we  esteem  them,  beyond  all  price. 

First:  "While  it  is  freely  and  gladly  admitted  that  the 
objective  study  of  natural  science,  by  modem  methods, 
affords  an  admirable  training  of  the  powers  of  percep- 
tion, of  the  habit  of  observation,  of  the  faculty  of  judg- 
ment, it  cannot  be  claimed  that  it  does  anything  towards 
directing  and  strengthening  the  executive  faculty,  which 
is  so  important  a  factor  of  success  in  life;  or  that  it  gives 
any  scope  or  play  whatever  to  that  creative  or  con- 
structive passion  which  is  the  highest  and  most  useful 
instinct  in  the  child's  mind,  but  which  is  readily  per- 
verted into  a  force  for  evil. 

Second:  While  the  effect  of  science-teaching  in  gram- 
mar schools,  is,  theoretically,  what  has  been  above 
admitted,  I  believe  it  to  be  true  that  it  is  much  more 
difficult  to  obtain  good,  fresh,  original,  spontaneous 
work  in  this  direction  than  can  be  had  in  school  exercises 
of  the  character  we  are  proposing;  and  that,  even  when 


A  PLEA  FOB  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.         165 

the  best  of  teaclimg-talent  can  be  secured,  a  smaller  pro- 
portion of  pupils  will  have  their  interest  fully  aroused 
and  their  mental  activities  fully  enlisted  by  the  study  of 
natural  science  than  by  exercises  in  the  mechanic  arts, 
where  the  perceptive  powers  and  the  faculty  of  judg- 
ment are  equally  called  into  use,  but  where,  also,  the 
creative  or  constructive  passion  is  brought  into  play,  to 
furnish  both  object  and  impulse  to  the  youthful  student. 

Third:  While  the  objective  study  of  natural  science 
tends  strongly  and  tends  directly  towards  moral  earnest- 
ness, simplicity  of  character,  and  intellectual  truthful- 
ness as  contrasted  with  the  cultivation  of  mnemonics, 
dialectics,  and  rhetoric,  it  cannot,  I  think,  be  claimed 
that  it  has  any  immediate  and  direct  influence  in  remov- 
ing that  snobbishness  of  feeling  and  that  dislike  and 
contempt  for  manual  labor  which  are  so  unhappily 
prevalent  among  our  half -educated  classes;  which  are  so 
injurious  industrially,  so  dangerous  socially  and  politi- 
cally, and  which  bear  an  enormous  annual  crop  of 
ruined  lives  in  the  case  of  tens  of  thousands  of  the  gradu- 
ates of  our  public  schools  who  have  been  made  too  fine 
for  manual  labor,  without  having  become  qualified  to 
take  any  higher  or  more  useful  places  in  the  industrial 
order,  and  who  thus  come  to  swell,  each  year,  the  throng 
of  useless  and  unhappy  applicants  for  the  comparatively 
few  positions  in  shops,  stores,  and  counting-houses, 
where  a  generally  poor  living  may  be  obtained  without 
soiling  the  fingers. 

On  the  other  hand,  no  one,  I  think,  can  look  upon  a 


166  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

class  of  bright  young  boys  working  at  tbe  carpenter's 
bench  or  around  the  blacksmith's  forge,  their  paper  caps 
upon  their  heads,  leather  aprons  and  jean  overalls  pro- 
tecting their  better  clothes,  their  faces  flushed  with  the 
excitement  and  delight  of  construction  and  creation, 
without  having  his  heart  glow  within  him  at  the  spec- 
tacle, and  without  the  serious  conviction  that  this  is  as  it 
should  be;  that  it  is  good  for  these  boys  and  good  for  the 
State  that  they  should  learn  to  do  such  things,  in  the 
name  of  education  and  under  the  authority  of  the  Com- 
monwealth/ 

'  First,  It  stimulates  a  love  for  intellectual  honesty.  It  deals  -with 
the  substance,  as  well  as  with  the  shadow;  it  gives  opportunity  for 
primitive  judgments;  it  shows  in  the  concrete,  in  the  most  unmistak- 
able form,  the  vast  difference  between  right  and  wrong;  it  substitutes 
personal  experience,  and  the  use  of  simple,  forcible  language,  for 
the  experience  of  others,  expressed  in  high-sounding  phrase.  It  as- 
sociates the  deed  with  the  thought,  the  real  with  the  ideal,  and  lays 
the  foundation  for  honesty  in  thought  and  in  act. 

Second,  The  good  moral  effect  of  occupation  is  most  marked.  No 
boys  were  ever  so  busy  as  ours,  in  school  and  out.  Every  strong, 
healthy  appetite  finds  its  appropriate  food.  The  variety  of  the  daily 
programme,  far  from  confusing,  produces  a  balance  of  healthy  inter- 
ests; and  not  only  the  boy's  time,  but  his  thoughts,  are  devoted  to 
the  work  of  the  school.  The  correlation  of  drawing  and  shop-work 
with  science  and  mathematical  studies  is  exceedingly  helpful  on  both 
sides,  and  parents  testify  to  the  absorption  of  our  pupils  in  their 
work.  Mothers  and  sisters  are  never  tired  of  telling  of  the  great  con- 
venience of  having  in  the  house  one  who  has  common  sense  enough 
to  use  the  universal  tools  and  to  keep  things  in  order.  The  hands 
are  rarely  idle  enough  to  allow  the  devil  to  get  in  his  mischievous 
work. 

Third,  A  third  moral  benefit  is  self-respect,  and  a  respect  for 
honest,  intelligent  labor.  A  boy  who  sees  nothing  in  manual  labor 
but  mere  brute  force  despises  botli  the  labor  and  the  laborer.  To 
him  all  hand-work  is  drudgery,  and  all  men  who  use  their  hands  are 
to  him  equally  uncultivated  and  unattractive.    With  the  acquisition 


A  PLEA  FOE  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.         167 

Fourth:  When  we  come  to  the  advantages  to  be  de- 
rived by  the  community  at  large  from  the  improvement 
in  the  industrial  quality  of  its  citizens,  through  the 
mechanical  education  of  the  whole  body  of  our  youth 
and  their  acquisition  and  mastery  of  the  elements  which 
underlie  all  mechanic  arts,  we  reach  ground  made  so 
familiar  by  recent  discussion  that  it  requires  mention 
only  in  passing.  To  the  industries  of  !N^ew  England  in 
especial  this  is  a  matter  of  transcendent  importance. 
With  a  harsh  climate  and  a  sterile  soil,  producing  few 
of  the  materials  of  its  own  manufactures,  importing  its 
cotton,  wool,  silk,  and  flax,  without  ores  of  the  useful  or 
the  precious  metals,  without  even  coal  for  power,  l^ew 
England  must  rely  for  its  continued  supremacy  in 
manufactures  upon  the  skill,  energy,  and  foresight  of 
its  employing  class,  and  upon  dexterity,  neatness  of 
manipulation,  care  of  materials,  and  mechanical  apti- 
tude, on  the  part  of  its  laborers.  We  cannot  afford  to 
tolerate  a  generation  growing  up,  as  Governor  Ames  has 
said  in  his  inaugural  message,  in  ignorance  of  the  use  of 
tools. 

Fifth:  Among  the  incidental  advantages  to  be  ex- 
pected from  the  introduction  of  the  proposed  studies  and 
exercises  into  our  public  schools,  is  one  which  has 
always  seemed  to  me  of  great  importance,  but  which  is 

of  skill  in  himself,  comes  a  pride  in  its  possession,  and  the  ability 
and  willingness  to  recognize  it  in  his  fellows.  When  once  he  appre- 
ciates skill  in  handicraft  or  in  any  manual  art,  he  regards  the  pos- 
sessor of  it  with  sympathy  and  respect. — Professor  C.  M.  Woodward, 
Director  of  the  Manual  Training  School  of  St.  Louis. 


168  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

seldom  alluded  to  in  discussion  of  this  subject:  namely, 
the  maintenance  of  that  sense  of  social  decency  which 
was  once  of  so  strong  a  savor  in  the  life  of  New  Eng- 
land. No  one  can  pass  through  any  of  our  villages  to- 
day without  being  painfully  struck  by  the  contrast  there 
afforded  with  the  villages  of  a  generation  ago,  when, 
almost  without  exception,  every  house  was  in  order  and 
in  repair,  the  fence  entire,  the  gate  hung,  the  shutters 
in  place,  the  sash  fully  glazed.  Around  the  house  the 
ground  was  graded  and  grassed,  and  almost  everywhere 
some  little  garden-patch  testified  to  the  universal  desire 
to  have  things  neat,  agreeable,  and  decent.  The  man 
then  who  kept  his  house  and  grounds  squalid  was  little 
less  than  a  public  enemy.  I  need  not  spend  words  in 
showing  how  great  is  the  contrast  in  many  of  our  New 
England  villages  to-day.  The  men  who,  on  every  hand, 
allow  their  premises  to  remain  shabby  and  squalid,  a  re- 
proach and  blemish  to  the  street,  receive  higher  wages 
than  our  fathers  ever  dreamed  of.  The  reason  why  they 
are  content  to  live  amid  such  miserable  surroundings  is 
because  they  have  come  from  lands  where  nothing  bet- 
ter was  known,  and,  secondly,  because  they  have  not  the 
dexterity  and  knowledge  of  the  use  of  tools  which  would 
enable  them  to  do  those  simple  jobs  of  construction  and 
repair  which  were  to  our  fathers  a  matter  of  course.  If 
we  are  to  reform  this  state  of  things,  which  is  alike  dis- 
graceful and  dangerous,  and  are  to  bring  about  a  gradual 
return  to  that  better  and  happier  condition  when  a  strong 
sense  of  social  decency,  inspiring  and  controlling  all  the 


A  PLEA  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.         169 

members  of  the  community,  constituted  the  best  possible 
guaranty  of  peace  and  order,  of  industry  and  frugality, 
we  must  teach  the  children  of  these  men  the  use  of  tools; 
and  we  can  do  it  in  no  other  way  than  through  the  pub- 
lic schools. 

Sixth:  On  the  subject  of  sewing  and  cooking  there 
are  many  who  can  speak  with  much  more  intelKgence 
and  authority  than  myself;  but  I  yield  to  no  one  in 
appreciation  of  the  importance  of  these  exercises  as  an 
integral  part  of  the  authoritative  curriculum  of  our 
schools.  So  vast  appear  to  me  the  advantages,  social 
and  physiological,  to  be  derived  from  this  source,  that, 
were  these  exercises  in  no  sense  and  in  no  degree  educa- 
tional, I  would  still  lay  this  duty  upon  the  schools,  as  a 
burden  to  be  carried  for  the  general  good,  and  I  would 
employ  the  authority  of  the  Commonwealth  to  train 
every  girl  within  our  borders  in  these  all-essential  domes- 
tic arts.  If,  as  Horace  Mann  said,  it  is  a  crime  for  a 
boy  here  to  grow  up  in  ignorance  of  reading  and  writing, 
what  sort  of  an  offense  is  it,  pray,  for  a  girl  here  to  grow 
up  in  ignorance  of  cooking  and  sewing?  Think  from 
what  kind  of  homes  tens  of  thousands  of  our  children  in 
the  public  schools  every  morning  come — ^rooms  dis- 
ordered and  ill-kept,  amid  foul  surroundings,  presided 
over  by  a  mother  who  cannot  decently  patch  or  darn  a 
garment  that  is  beginning  to  give  way,  and  who  knows 
only  enough  of  cooking  to  take  the  perhaps  abundant  ma- 
terials supplied  her  and  render  them,  by  dirty  and  waste- 
ful processes,  into  disagreeable  and  indigestible  messes, 


IVO  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

productive  of  dyspepsia  and  scrofula  and  provocative  of 
a  craving  for  strong  drink.  As  a  mere  matter  of  public 
safety,  can  we  afford  to  breed  such  a  population  in  this 
Republic? 

But,  in  fact,  cooking  and  sewing  in  the  public  schools 
can  be  made,  and,  so  far  as  they  have  been  carried,  have 
been  made  as  truly  and  as  strictly  educational  as  the 
three  R's  of  the  primitive  schoolhouse.  Can  anyone 
look  into  the  rooms  of  the  Winthrop  School,  when  sew- 
ing is  going  on  under  its  wise  and  benign  master,*  with- 
out seeing  that  the  powers  and  faculties  of  the  children 
are  most  actively  and  harmoniously  developing;  that 
character  is  rapidly  and  happily  forming,  as  hand,  eye, 
and  brain  work  together,  all  inspired  by  the  acute  de- 
light which  the  child  always  feels  when  creating  some- 
thing useful  or  beautiful;  that,  in  a  word,  education  in 
the  largest  and  best  sense  is  here  taking  place  ?  Can  any- 
one look  into  the  Tennyson-street  cooking  school,  with- 
out seeing,  in  the  care  and  economy  with  which  fuel  and 
materials  are  used ;  in  the  order  and  neatness  which  per- 
vade the  room — not  less  the  cupboards  and  lockers  than 
its  open  parts;  in  the  reasoning  which  precedes  every 
operation,  and  the  subsequent  explanation  of  effects  by 
well-approved  causes,  an  example  of  the  very  best  kind 
of  education? 

Seventh:  I  have  now  reached  the  regular  orthodox 

number  in  exposition,  and  have  reserved  to  the  last  what 

1  Robert  Swan,  Esq. ,  to  -whom  Boston  owes  a  debt  it  can  never  pay, 
for  the  part  he  has  taken  in  introducing  sewing  into  the  public 
schools. 


A  PLEA  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.         171 

is,  to  my  mind,  the  most  important  consideration. 
However  strictly  we  may  hold  to  the  doctrine  that  the 
sole  sufficient  justification  of  school  exercises  is  found  in 
their  educational  character,  we  cannot  deny  that  the 
maintenance  of  the  schools  themselves,  and  their  ample 
endowment  and  support,  are  considerations  which  may 
properly,  and  which  properly  should,  be  admitted  to 
qualify,  so  far  as  occasion  exists,  the  organization  of 
schools  and  the  curriculum  of  their  studies. 

I  heartily  believe  that  the  introduction  of  the  me- 
chanic arts,  and  of  sewing  and  cooking,  into  the  public 
schools  will  do  much,  very  much,  not  only  to  increase 
the  interest  of  the  pupils  in  their  work,^  as  has  been 
already  indicated,  but  to  win  for  the  schools  a  far  larger 
degree  of  interest  on  the  part  of  parents  and  a  far 
heartier  support  of  the  system  on  the  part  of  the  general 
community. 

Indications  are  not  wanting  that  powerful  elements 
of  hostility  are  beginning  to  array  themselves  against 
free  public  schools,^  with  compulsory  attendance,  main- 

^  It  was  thought  also,  that  taking  a  part  of  a  class  away  from  its 
regular  school  work  would  result  in  more  or  less  detriment  to  its 
progress  in  the  prescribed  studies.  Here  and  there  a  complaint  was 
made  by  the  teacher  of  some  second-class  boy,  that  he  was  not  doing 
his  work  well  in  his  own  room;  but  the  pupil,  in  every  case,  was  so 
anxious  to  remain  in  the  "  carpenter's  class,"  that  a  word  or  two  of 
warning  was  sufficient  to  bring  his  performance  up  to  standard 
again.  .  .  I  consider  that  the  results  go  far  to  prove  that  manual  train- 
ing is  80  great  a  relief  to  the  iteration  of  school  work  that  it  is  a 
positive  benefit,  rather  than  a  detriment,  to  the  course  in  the  other 
studies. — Jamea  A.  Page,  Master  of  tJie  Dwight  School,  Boston. 

*  The  importance  and  necessity  for  the  extension  of  our  system  of 
public-school  education,  so  as  to  include  some  form  of  industrial 


172  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

tained  under  the  authority  and  at  the  expense  of  the 
State;  while,  perhaps  more  dangerous  still,  appear  signs 
of  disaffection  and  indifference  among  vast  numbers 
who  have  no  reason  to  be  actively  hostile.  I  believe 
that  nothing  will  go  so  directly  to  the  root  of  this  evil 
as  the  reforms  which  this  meeting  has  been  called  to  con- 
sider; and  that,  not  less  for  the  schools  themselves  than 
for  the  scholars,  will  there  be  found  great  virtue  in  the 
admission  of  the  elements  of  industrial  education  into 
every  schoolhouse  of  the  State,  however  humble  and 
however  remote. 

training,  has  been  constantly  increasing  during  my  twelve  years' 
service  on  the  Boston  School  Board. 

To  my  mind,  equity,  morality,  good  citizenship,  and  the  industrial 
welfare  of  the  community,  are  all  involved  in  this  question.  "When 
we  think  of  the  difficulties  placed  in  the  way  of  learning  trades,  by 
the  virtual  abolition  of  the  apprenticeship  system,  and  by  the  fact 
that  our  educational  methods  train  the  boy  away  from  the  mechanic 
arts  in  a  country  with  unequaled  opportunities  for  their  exercise,  we 
must  admit  that,  up  to  the  present  time,  we  have  considered  but  one 
side  of  the  general  subject.  Now,  however,  the  growing  pressure  of 
public  opinion  demands  a  change,  and  I  confidently  look  forward  to 
the  completion  of  our  system  by  the  introduction  of  technical 
schools.  In  these,  the  grammar-school  boy,  led  by  his  inclination  or 
his  necessities,  can  be  educated  as  thoroughly  in  the  preparation  for 
mechanical  work  and  skilled  labor,  as  his  brother  in  the  high  and 
Latin  schools  is  for  business  and  the  professions. — Dr.  J.  O.  Blake, 
Boston. 


MANUAL  EDUCATION  IN  URBAN 
COMMUNITIES 

1887 


Address  befohk  the  National  Educational  As- 
sociation, AT  Chicago,  Jin^T  15,  1887.  From  the 
Addresses  and  Proceedings  of  the  National  Educational 
Association,  1887. 


MANUAL  EDUCATION"  IN  UEBAN  COMMUNITIES. 

As  we  pass  from  rural  districts  and  small  villages  to 
large  towns  and  cities,  the  need  of  what  is  called  manual 
education,  or  what  I  should  prefer  to  call  mechanical 
education,  increases  palpably  and  rapidly;  while  the 
difficulty  and  relative  cost  of  instituting  and  maintaining 
the  required  services  of  instruction  diminish  in  an  almost 
€qual  ratio. 

In  the  country,  the  boy  finds  a  hundred  opportunities, 
alike  at  work  and  at  play,  for  acquiring  much  of  that 
which  can  be  given  to  the  city  boy  only  by  way  of  formal 
instruction.  Whether  in  his  daily  stint  of  labor,  upon 
the  farm,  about  the  house,  the  bam,  the  sheds,  or  in  his 
sports  or  rambles,  upon  the  village  green,  over  the  field, 
through  the  woods — the  country  boy  has  incessant  occa- 
sion to  use  his  hands  and  his  eyes;  to  observe,  to  plan, 
to  do. 

It  would  not  become  us,  as  teachers,  to  admit  that 
what  is  thus  done  is  as  well  done  as  it  would  be  if  the 
foundation  were  properly  laid  in  systematic  instruction; 
that  the  boy  can,  for  himself,  or  under  the  guidance  of 
older  persons  themselves  untrained  to  teach,  themselves 
largely  unintelligent  as  to  means  and  processes,  often 
working  by  "  rule  of  thumb  "  and  pursuing  purely  tra- 
ditional methods — that  the  boy  can,  under  such  condi- 

175 


176  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

tions,  either  accumulate  knowledge  or  acquire  skill  and 
training  as  well  and  rapidly  as  he  would  under  good 
tuition.  We  all  know  that  one  may  play  at  games  or 
work  at  tasks  for  years,  without  learning  to  do  either  as 
well  as  might  he  accomplished  in  a  single  year  under  a 
true  master,  a  master  both  of  the  special  arts  involved 
and  of  the  greater  art  of  teaching.  No  one  can  have 
widely  observed  mankind  without  being  painfully  im- 
pressed by  the  obtuseness  and  perverseness  which  cause 
advantages  near  at  hand  to  be  lost,  the  plainest  reasons 
for  the  phenomena  of  daily  life  to  be  overlooked,  the 
most  natural  and  direct  ways  of  doing  things  to  be  neg- 
lected for  stupid  and  clumsy  and  wasteful  methods,  all 
from  the  lack  of  elementary  instruction  in  first  prin- 
ciples, and  of  the  formation  of  habits  of  observation  and 
reflection,  under  systematic  tuition. 

Yet  in  spite  of  the  deficiencies  which  remain,  what 
the  country  boy  enjoys  in  the  way  of  training  hand  and 
eye  to  be  true  servants  of  the  mind;  what  he  enjoys  in 
the  way  of  opportunities  and  incentives  for  making  the 
mind  itself  the  real  master  of  life,  through  a  well- 
rounded  and  harmonious  development  of  all  the  powers, 
through  the  creation  of  the  spirit  of  self-reliance, 
through  the  exercise  given  to  the  constructive  and 
executive  faculty,  is  almost  infinitely  greater  than  that 
which  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  unhappy  city  boy  of  to-day. 
Out  of  school,  what  has  the  latter  to  do  with  himself,  his 
time,  or  the  energy  given  him,  as  we  are  wont  to  say,  for 
some  good  purpose,  though  it  would  puzzle  the  most  de- 


MANUAL  EDUCATION  IN  URBAN  COMMUNITIES.     HI 

vout  and  the  most  ingenious  to  tell  for  what  purpose 
energy  should  have  been  given  to  a  boy  condemned  to 
live  in  a  modem  city  ? 

Work  he  cannot,  for,  except  in  the  rarest  instances, 
there  is  nothing  useful  for  him  to  do.  No  matter  how 
poor  or  even  how  poverty-stricken  his  family,  it  would 
be  almost  impossible  for  him  to  contribute  to  the  com- 
mon means.  In  the  olden  time,  such  a  boy  could  have 
helped  his  father  or  mother  to  spin  or  to  weave.  To- 
day, one  buying  flax  or  cotton  or  wool  to  work  upon,  in 
the  intervals  of  schooling,  could  not  get  back  the  cost  of 
his  material  in  the  price  of  his  product,  sold  in  competi- 
tion with  the  output  of  the  giant  factory  and  its  power 
looms.  In  the  olden  time,  such  a  boy  could  have  carved 
in  wood  or  worked  on  metal,  or  have  helped  his  father 
make  furniture,  boots,  gloves,  or  hats  in  the  family 
home.  To-day,  nearly  every  art  of  domestic  manu- 
facture has  utterly  disappeared,  leaving  not  a  trace  be- 
hind. It  is  almost  impossible  now  for  even  the  women 
of  the  family  to  find  any  work  by  which  they  can  add  the 
most  trifling  amount  to  the  common  means. 

So  highly  organized  is  modern  industry,  so  exacting 
are  its  requirements,  that  no  one  wants  the  fragments 
of  a  boy's  time,  for  any  productive  purpose.  A  lad  who 
cannot  give  his  whole  day  is  not,  in  one  case  in  a  hun- 
dred, worth  having  around. 

Let  us  pause  a  moment  to  consider  what  this  means. 
A  generation  ago,  not  in  the  country  only,  but  in  every 
city  and  town,  there  was  an  abundance  of  useful  work 


178  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

to  occupy  the  time  and  energy  of  almost  every  school- 
boy out  of  school.  These  tasks  constituted  a  most  use- 
ful part  of  his  training.  They  wrought  into  the  very 
fabric  of  his  being  the  idea  and  sentiment  of  a  common 
family  interest;  they  gave  scope  and  play  to  the  creative 
and  constructive  faculty;  they  trained  eye  and  hand  to 
accuracy  and  precision;  they  taught  the  child  to  respect 
toil  and  to  value  the  fruits  of  toil;  they  sweetened  the 
bread  of  poverty;  they  made  the  sleep  of  childhood 
sounder.  To-day,  under  the  new  conditions  of  produc- 
tion, it  would,  in  almost  every  city  home,  cost  more  to 
keep  a  boy  usefully  employed  than  to  feed  him  in 
idleness. 

Do  you  say:  "  Well  then,  let  him  play,  if  he  cannot 
work  "  ?  I  answer  that,  in  our  modem  cities,  even  out- 
door play,  of  any  satisfactory  sort,  is  scarcely  practicable. 
Search  the  city  of  Boston  on  a  pleasant  Saturday  after- 
noon; and  out  of  thousands  of  boys,  who  should  be  doing 
something  with  energy  and  enthusiasm,  their  muscles 
all  strung,  their  blood  tingling  in  their  veins,  you  will 
not  find  one  in  fifty  doing  anything  which  would  be  even 
a  poor  caricature  of  country  sport.  On  the  famous 
Common,  you  will  see  two  or  three  balls  being  pitched 
or  knocked  about,  while  a  large  crowd  of  idlers  look  on. 
In  a  few  vacant  and  unfilled  lots,  you  will  find  a  very 
poor  game  of  base-ball  or  foot-ball  going  on.  Some 
scores  of  lads  have,  perhaps,  had  the  moral  courage  and 
mental  initiative  to  go  upon  tramps  into  the  country. 
All  the  rest  are  either  walking  the  streets,  or  loafing  in 


MANUAL  EDUCATION  IN  URBAN  COMMUNITIES.     179 

the  parks,  or  hanging  about  the  house.  Of  this  last — 
by  far  the  greatest — class,  some  are  lounging,  moody, 
bored,  and  discontented;  some  are  revenging  their  un- 
happy lot  by  pestering  their  mothers  and  the  smaller 
children;  some  are  further  muddling  their  brains  by 
reading  or  study,  of  which  they  have  already  had  too 
much. 

Such  and  no  greater  are  the  opportunities  and  incen- 
tives afforded  the  city  boy  of  to-day  for  acquiring  knowl- 
edge of  things,  for  training  the  perceptive  powers,  for 
forming  habits  of  observation,  for  discriminating  be- 
tween phenomena  and  interpreting  their  just  signifi- 
cance, for  exercising  the  constructive  and  creative 
faculty,  which  is  the  most  godlike  thing  in  man.  This 
brief  survey  will,  I  trust,  be  held  to  justify  my  assertion 
that,  as  we  pass  from  rural  districts  and  small  villages  to 
large  towns  and  cities,  the  need  of  what  is  called  manual 
education,  in  connection  with  the  school  system,  palp- 
ably and  rapidly  increases. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  burden  of  instituting  and 
maintaining  instruction  in  the  mechanic  arts  diminishes 
as  we  pass  from  rural  to  urban  communities  quite  as 
rapidly  as  the  need  of  such  instruction  increases.  This 
is  due,  not  alone  to  the  comparative  poverty  of  agricul- 
tural populations,  although  the  inability  of  many  dis- 
tricts of  this  class  properly  to  support  schools,  even  of 
the  traditional  type,  constitutes  one  of  the  gravest  edu- 
cational problems  of  the  time.  This  result  is  in  a  much 
higher  degree  due  to  the  concentration  of  population  in 


180  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

commercial  and  manufacturing  communities,  allowing 
the  same  amount  of  apparatus  and  supplies,  and  the  same 
amount  of  skilled  service  to  do  a  vastly  greater  work  of 
instruction  than  would  be  possible  in  rural  districts.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  contrast  the  small  schoolhouses, 
widely  scattered,  which  serve  the  purposes  of  an  agri- 
cultural population,  with  the  twelve-room  buildings, 
thickly  set,  in  which  the  children  of  our  cities  and  large 
towns  receive  elementary  instruction,  in  order  to  show 
the  greatness  of  the  advantage  which  would  be  enjoyed 
by  communities  of  the  class  under  consideration  in  the 
matter  of  manual  or  mechanical  education.  The  dif- 
ference, in  this  respect,  between  city  and  country  must 
be  obvious  on  the  merest  mention.  Where  children,  by 
thousands,  are  concentrated  in  narrow  districts,  the 
question  of  providing  the  means  of  instruction  in  the 
mechanic  arts  is  little  more  than  the  question  whether 
such  instruction  is  itself  desirable.*  The  technical 
teacher  who,  in  the  country,  could  reach  only  a  few 
small  classes,  for  a  single  lesson  in  a  week,  would,  in  the 

'  I  think  there  is  no  city  of  ten  thousand  inhabitants  in  this  State 
[Massachusetts]  which  could  not  within  a  year  set  on  foot  a  high 
school  of  the  mechanical  arts,  which  should  be  either  immediately 
connected  with  its  high  school  or  located  at  some  short  distance  from 
it,  according  to  the  expense  or  other  considerations  involved.  .  . 
In  those  schools  I  think  the  high-school  children  from  fourteen  to 
eighteen  should  be  trained  in  carpentry  and  joinery,  and  in  work  at  the 
forge  and  at  the  lathe;  trained  in  the  mechanic  arts;  taught  to  make 
things;  taught  to  impose  their  ideas  upon  matter,  and  to  compel  it  to 
take  the  form  which  they  have  chosen  for  it. — Prom  Testimony  before 
the  Committee  of  Vie  Senate  of  the  United  States  upon  the  Belationa  be- 
tween Labor  and  Capital,  1885. 


MANUAL  ED  UCA  TION  IN  UBBA  N  COMMUNITIES.     1 8 1 

city,  find  his  power  of  instruction  limited  only  by  his 
own  strength  and  vital  force.  The  apparatus  and  tools 
which  in  the  country  could  serve  but  a  few  score  of 
pupils  would,  in  the  city,  serve  as  many  hundreds. 
Even  the  supplies,  purchased  at  wholesale  and  requiring 
little  transportation,  would  cost  the  city  school  board 
much  less  than  the  rural  school  committee. 

So  great  is  the  total  effect  of  these  differences  of  con- 
dition, that  it  may  be  safely  said  that  a  city  of  ten  thou- 
sand inhabitants  could  provide  instruction  in  a  variety 
of  mechanic  arts,  under  the  best  teachers,  with  the 
choicest  apparatus,  tools,  and  machinery,  and  could 
carry  its  pupils  from  stage  to  stage  through  an  extended 
mechanical  education,  at  less  expense  than  would  be  re- 
quired to  give  the  same  number  of  pupils,  in  rural  dis- 
tricts, a  rude  course  in  a  single  art,  under  the  cheapest 
arrangements  that  could  be  made  as  to  teachers,  tools, 
and  supplies. 

The  concurrence  of  the  two  conditions  indicated, 
namely:  the  greater  need  of  manual  or  mechanical  edu- 
cation in  cities  and  large  towns,  and  the  diminished  cost 
of  instituting  and  maintaining  such  a  system  of  instruc- 
tion in  communities  of  this  class,  and,  I  might  add,  the 
greater  financial  resources  there  available  to  do  what- 
ever may  be  fairly  determined  to  be  for  the  good  of  the 
rising  generation — this  concurrence  of  favorable  condi- 
tions seems  to  me  to  establish  the  expediency  of  begin- 
ning in  our  cities  and  large  towns  whatever  it  may  be 
decided  to  undertake  in  this  matter.     Here  it  is  the  ma- 


182  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

chinery  should  be  earliest  set  up  and  put  to  working. 
Here  it  is  we  may  most  fully  and  conclusively  determine 
the  capabilities  of  the  system,  ascertain  the  unfortunate 
liabilities,  if  any,  to  which  it  is  subject,  and  create  that 
body  of  experience  which  is  essential  to  its  full  and  per- 
fect development.  Here,  too,  it  is  we  should  train  the 
teachers  who  will  be  needed  for  the  extension  of  this 
Mnd  of  instruction,  outwards,  stage  by  stage,  from  more 
to  less  compact  communities. 

Whether,  within  urban  communities,  the  develop- 
ment of  the  system  of  manual  education  should  be  by  a 
gradual  extension  downwards  from  the  high  school,  or 
upwards  from  the  grammar  school,  is  a  question  deserv- 
ing the  careful  consideration  of  all  interested  in  this 
subject,  a  question  on  which  light  may  perhaps  be 
thrown  by  experience.  The  most  popular  procedure  at 
the  present  time,  in  promotion  of  manual  education, 
appears  to  be  the  institution  of  high  schools  of  the  me- 
chanic arts,  as  in  St.  Louis,  Chicago,  and  other  Western 
cities,  the  question  of  such  instruction  in  the  grammar 
schools  being  left  to  the  future. 

In  Boston,  in  addition  to  a  small  private  high  school 
of  mechanic  arts,^  we  have  introduced  instruction  in  car- 
pentry, to  a  limited  extent,  into  the  grammar  schools. 

When  Lady  Hamilton  asked  the  sailor  who  had 
brought  her  a  message  from  Lord  Nelson,  whether  he 
would  have  a  glass  of  ale,  or  a  little  rum,  or  should  she 

'  In  1894  was  established  the  existing  Mechanic  Arts  High  School 
as  a  part  of  the  public  school  system, — Ed. 


MANTTAL  EDUCATION  IN  URBAN  COMMUNITIES.     183 

brew  him  a  punch,  Jack,  with  a  proper  pull  at  his  fore- 
lock, replied,  "  Well,  your  ladyship,  I'll  take  the  ale 
now;  and  be  sipping  my  grog  while  your  ladyship  mixes 
the  punch."  I  am  disposed  to  think  that  we  should 
deal  with  this  question  of  the  introduction  of  manual 
education  in  our  schools,  in  somewhat  of  Jack's  rather 
grasping  spirit;  that  we  should  take  all  we  can  get,  and 
this  as  soon  as  possible.  !N"ot  that  I  am  anxious  to 
hasten  the  complete  result,  namely,  the  universal  intro- 
duction of  manual  instruction  into  our  public  schools 
for  at  least  all  scholars  above  the  age  of  twelve;  not  that 
I  am  sanguine  of  immediate  success  in  whatever  may  be 
to  this  end  undertaken;  not  that  I  ov&rlook  the  prob- 
ability that  some  part  of  what  may  be  attempted  will 
result  in  failure ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that,  where  so  great 
a  task  is  before  us,  the  sooner  we  get  to  work,  some- 
where, somehow, — almost  anywhere,  anyhow, — the 
better.  In  such  a  case  there  is  more  waste  in  doing 
nothing  than  in  many  mistakes  made  in  doing  some- 
thing. This  is  not  a  situation  to  which  applies  Davy 
Crockett's  maxim:  first  be  sure  you  are  right  and  then 
go  ahead.  The  very  thing  we  have  to  do  is  to  make 
experiments,  to  create  experience. 

"We  know  we  are  right  in  our  general  principles. 
The  best  expert  opinion  coincides  with  the  increasing 
conviction  of  the  community,  that  the  traditional  cur- 
riculum of  the  schools  needs  to  be  essentially  modified, 
through  the  introduction  of  studies  and  exercises  which 
shall  train  eye  and  hand;  which  shall  cultivate  the  per- 


184  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

ceptive  faculties,  so  long  and  grievously  neglected; 
which  shall  create  a  respect  for  manual  skill  and  dex- 
terity and  for  taste  in  design;  which  shall  afford  scope 
and  play  for  the  creative  and  constructive  instinct. 
Just  what  these  studies  and  exercises  shall  be,  in  char- 
acter and  order  of  succession,  is  to  be  determined  by  ex- 
periment rather  than  by  forecast.  The  question  is  one 
which  requires  to  be  worked  out  rather  than  to  be 
thought  out.  The  most  that  is  likely  to  be  done  in  the 
immediate  present  will  not  be  more  than  to  accumulate 
experience,  determining  the  direction  which  our  efforts 
in  this  interest  shall  ultimately  take. 

One  thing  seems  reasonably  well  established,  namely, 
that  carpentry  and  wood-turning  are  the  arts  with  which 
we  may  most  advantageously  begin  with  grammar-school 
pupils.  Work  in  these  lines  is  sure  to  interest  both 
children  ai;d  parents.  It  is  easier  to  get  competent 
teachers  than  in  any  other  of  the  arts.  The  expense  of 
machinery,  tools  and  supplies  comes  fairly  within  the 
means  of  any  urban  community.  The  practical  value 
of  the  acquirement  of  these  arts  is  palpable  to  the  least 
instructed  mind.  The  last  consideration  is,  however, 
one  on  which  the  advocates  of  manual  training  must  not 
greatly  dwell,  since  the  strength  of  their  position  lies  in 
the  claim  that  such  studies  are,  truly,  purely,  and  highly, 
educational,^  being  actually  required,  in  addition  to  the 

'  Industry,  as  such,  has,  in  my  judgment,  no  place  in  the  public 
schools,  though  industriousness  is  always  in  order  there.  The  prime 
object  of  our  school  system  is  education,  and  it  cannot  be  to  any  con- 
siderable extent  diverted  from  that  end  without  injury  to  the  schools 


MANUAL  ED  UCA  TION  IN  URBAN  COMMUNITIES.     185 

familiar  studies  of  the  public  school,  to  secure  the  com- 
plete and  harmonious  development  of  the  powers  and 
faculties  of  the  mind. 

That  the  introduction  of  these  or  any  other  mechanic 
arts  into  the  grammar  schools  would  give  new  direction 
and  a  fresh  impulse  to  the  study  and  practice  of  draw- 
ing, is  certain.  I  agree  with  Dr.  Runkle,  that  drawing 
in  the  public  schools,  not  directed  upon  work  in  the  me- 
chanic arts,  is  not  one-half  of  what  it  would  be  as  an  edu- 
cational force  had  it  a  definite  object.  I  look  with 
confidence  to  see  this  most  interesting  and  promising 
study  receive  a  new  inspiration  wherever  the  use  of  tools 
is  introduced  into  the  schools. 

One  thing  more  I  will  say  regarding  the  inauguration 

themselves  and  to  the  community  at  large.  Indeed,  it  would  scarcely 
be  possible  to  do  a  greater  wrong  to  the  major  part  of  our  public- 
school  children  than  by  taking  any  appreciable  share  of  the  little 
time  they  have  for  the  development  and  training  of  their  intellectual 
powers,  for  the  purpose  of  applying  it  to  the  mere  means  of  bread- 
winning  or  money-making. 

But  while  I  thus  hold  strongly  to  the  strictly  educational  charac- 
ter of  school  work,  I  believe  that  the  courses  of  study  in  the  schools 
of  New  England  have  been,  and,  though  in  a  diminishing  degree, 
still  are,  incomplete  and  inadequate  to  the  demands  of  a  full  and 
symmetrical  education.  I  believe  that  these  deficiencies  have  induced 
a  one-sided  development  of  mind  and  character;  have  led  to  the  set- 
ting up  of  false  standards  of  what  is  admirable  and  desirable  in  life; 
have  caused  to  be  magnified  glibness  of  speech,  force  of  declamation, 
readiness  in  recitation,  and  retentiveness  of  memory,  at  the  expense 
of  far  more  useful  faculties,  qualities,  or  habits,  namely,  soundness  of 
judgment,  clearness  of  perception,  the  habit  of  observation,  the  cre- 
ative instinct,  the  executive  faculty. 

Briefly  speaking,  my  project  of  reform,  in  schools  for  boys,  would 
be  as  follows:  carry  the  best-approved  methods  of  the  kindergarten 
upward  through  the  primary  grades,  as  far  as  the  means  and  re- 
sources of  each  school,  for  itself,  will  allow;  introduce  more  and 


186  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

of  this  system,  which  i&,  that  the  friends  of  the  new  edu- 
cation should  refuse  to  accept  less  than  two  exercises  of 
an  hour  and  a  half  or  two  hours  each,  per  week,  in  the 
mechanic  arts.  Wherever  committee-men  and  teachers 
are  not  prepared  to  grant  so  much  as  this,  cannot  see 
their  way  to  clear  at  least  this  amount  of  space  for  the 
mechanic  arts,  it  would  be  well,  in  my  judgment,  though 
I  speak  with  some  hesitation,  to  await  a  more  fortunate 
time  and  a  better  disposition  on  the  part  of  those  who 
control  the  schools. 

Whatever  other  arts  may,  in  the  development  of  this 
system,  come  to  be  associated  with  carpentry  and  wood- 


more  the  study  of  form,  color,  texture,  structure,  and  organization, 
by  means  of  natural  objects  in  the  hands  of  pupils  and  teachers, 
stimulating  and  encouraging  the  pupils,  more  and  more  as  their  fac- 
ulties are  developed,  to  make  observations  for  themselves  at  their 
play  or  at  their  work,  and  to  bring  the  results  back  to  the  schoolroom, 
for  comparison,  for  criticism,  for  discussion;  at  the  age  of  twelve,  or 
thereabouts,  introduce  semi-weekly  exercises  with  tools,  preferably 
wood-working  tools,  and  in  clay-modeling,  for  the  cultivation  of  the 
sense  of  form,  for  the  training  of  the  eye  and  hand,  and  for  gaining 
the  power  to  give  material  shape  to  conceptions  of  the  mind  ;  at  four- 
teen years  of  age,  or  thereabouts,  introduce  exercises  in  metal-work- 
ing, and  require  every  boy  who  passes  through  one  of  the  high 
schools  of  the  State  to  become  a  good  mechanic,  not  at  all  for  the 
sake  of  his  practicing  a  mechanical  avocation,  but  to  make  him  a 
better  equipped,  more  capable,  and  more  useful  man. 

All  this  could  not  be  done  at  once.  The  system  would  have  to  be 
introduced  gradually  and  tentatively.  Probably  the  more  natural 
order  would  be  that  the  system  should  extend  from  the  higher 
schools  downward,  and  from  the  city  schools  outward.  Much 
would  be  learned  in  the  course  of  the  gradual  development  of  such 
a  system;  and  the  best-conceived  programme  would  doubtless  require 
considerable  modifications,  as  the  result  of  experience. — D'om  a 
Symposium :  ' '  What  Industry,  if  any,  can  profitably  be  introduced 
into  Country  Schools?"  in  " Science  "  April  15,  1887. 


MANUAL  EDUCATION  IN  URBAN  COMMUNITIES.     187 

turning  in  the  grammar  schools,  it  appears  to  me  that, 
at  the  very  beginning,  we  may  demand  a  complete 
course  of  both  wood-  and  metal-working  for  that  smaller 
number  of  advanced  pupils  who  go  forward  into  the 
high  school.  If  it  is  for  the  interest  of  the  State  that 
these  young  persons  shall,  at  the  public  expense,  be 
further  educated  and  cultivated  on  one  side  of  their 
minds,  it  is  not  equally,  but  doubly,  desirable  that  the 
education  and  cultivation  of  their  other  powers  and 
faculties  should  be  kept  up  in  the  high  school.  It  is 
little  less  than  a  shame  that  we  should  graduate  from 
these  schools  pupils  who  are  highly  accomplished  in  lan- 
guage, composition,  and  declamation,  but  are  less  keen 
in  perception,  less  careful  in  observation,  weaker  in 
practical  judgment,  with  less  of  visual  accuracy,  less  of 
manual  dexterity,  less  of  the  executive  faculty — the 
power,  that  is,  of  doing  things  instead  of  merely  think- 
ing about  them,  talking  about  them,  and  writing  about 
them — than  the  children  of  the  ordinary  ungraded  dis- 
trict school. 

Whatever  views  one  may  hold  of  the  mutual  relations 
of  the  child  and  the  State  in  the  grammar  school,  it  can 
be  gainsaid  by  no  one  that,  if  the  community  is  to  be 
called  upon  to  carry  the  more  favored  children  forward, 
through  long  and  expensive  courses  of  advanced  educa- 
tion and  training,  those  men  who,  on  behalf  of  the  com- 
munity, direct  the  schools  of  this  class  have  the  absolute 
right  to  impose  terms  and  conditions,  to  exact  and  to 
withhold   whatever   the   public   interest   may   require. 


188  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

Cherislimg  the  views  I  do  as  to  what  constitutes  a  com- 
plete education,  I  would  allow  no  pupil  to  graduate  from 
a  high  school  who  was  not  as  proficient  and  exact  in  me- 
chanical as  in  grammatical  exercises;  I  would  not  make 
myself  responsible  for  adding  to  the  number  of  youth 
who  have  been  trained  in  description,  without  having 
been  taught  to  observe  the  things  they  should  describe; 
who  have  spent  years  in  the  art  of  rhetorical  elaboration 
and  ornamentation,  without  acquiring  any  adequate 
body  and  substance  upon  which  to  exercise  those  arts; 
who  are  clever  in  dialectics  and  declamation,  but  pur- 
blind in  perception  and  feeble  in  execution;  great  at 
second-hand  knowledge,  but  confused  and  diffident  when 
thrown  upon  their  own  resources;  skillful  with  the  pen, 
but  using  any  other  tool  awkwardly  and  ignorantly. 

The  mischief  we  can  possibly  do,  through  a  one-sided 
education,  to  those  who  stop  short  with  the  grammar 
school  is,  fortunately,  limited.  These  children,  escap- 
ing from  tuition  before  they  have  got  their  growth  and 
going  at  once  to  work,  have  an  opportunity  to  cure  in 
part  the  faults  and  to  supply  in  part  the  deficiencies  of 
their  education.  That  work,  of  course,  does  them  far 
less  good,  and  they  do  it  far  less  well,  than  if  the  founda- 
tion had  been  laid  in  early  youth,  under  proper  guidance 
and  instruction.  Yet,  at  least,  they  are  saved  from 
growing  up  and  growing  out  all  on  one  side,  like  the  un- 
happy youth  who  are  destined  to  go  on,  for  three  or 
seven  years  more,  rehearsing  the  opinions  of  others; 
memorizing  facts  ascertained  by  others;  practicing  a 


MANUAL  EDUCATION  IN  URBAN  COMMUNITIES.     189 

simulated  passion  in  declamation,  an  artificial  taste  in 
■composition;  making  much  of  grammatical  niceties, 
painfully  polishing  periods  without  much  regard  to  the 
thoughts  these  should  inclose;  going  over  and  over  a 
weary  round  of  second-hand  information  and  second- 
hand ideas,  and  acquiring  a  few  purely  conventional 
accomplishments. 

We  hear  much  of  the  contempt  of  so-called  self-made 
men  toward  scholars;  of  their  distrust,  in  practical  mat- 
ters, of  school-made  and  book-read  men.  Doubtless 
some  part  of  this  feeling  is  of  vulgar  origin,  due  to 
jealousy,  envy,  or  ignorance;  but  a  far  better  part  I  be- 
lieve to  be  perfectly  just,  arising  from  a  correct  appre- 
hension of  the  natural  effects  of  long-continued  study 
and  exercise  within  the  traditional  lines  of  high  school 
and  college  instruction,  producing  a  disposition  to  hesi- 
tate, to  procrastinate,  to  multiply  distinctions,  to  refine 
in  preparation,  to  stand  shivering  on  the  verge  of  action. 
Doubtless,  many  school-  and  college-bred  men,  when 
thrown  into  action,  are  found  to  have  enough  of  robust 
manhood  to  overcome  the  ill  effects  of  their  early  train- 
ing, especially  if  in  school  or  college  they  were  not  very 
good  scholars.  But  would  it  not  be  better  from  the  first 
to  associate  with  the  dialectical,  grammatical,  and  rhe- 
torical exercises  of  our  schools  and  with  the  perhaps 
necessary  acquisition  of  much  mere  gazetteer,  cyclo- 
pedia, and  dictionary  information,  studies  and  exercises 
which  shall  not  only  prevent  the  formation  of  distinctly 
bad  habits  of  mind  and  will,  but  shall  positively  develop 


190  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

those  powers  and  faculties  which  the  very  first  access  to 
the  duties  of  professional  and  business  life  shows  to  be 
the  most  useful  of  our  endowments? 

I  believe  that  the  introduction  of  the  new  studies  and 
exercises  which  we  are  advocating  will  not  prove  a  mere 
addition  to  the  work  of  the  school  or  college.  I  believe 
it  will  also  profoundly  modify  the  instruction  given 
within  traditional  lines.  Boys  and  young  men  who 
have  learned  to  observe  for  themselves,  to  acquire  knowl- 
edge at  first  hand,  to  give  effect  to  their  purposes  and 
form  to  their  ideas;  who  have  been  accustomed  to  im- 
pose their  will  upon  matter  and  to  make  it  take  shape  to 
suit  their  intellectual  conceptions;  who  know  how  to 
project,  to  plan,  to  execute;  will  have  little  patience  with 
much  that  makes  up  the  traditional  curriculum.  They 
will  demand  to  be  brought  face  to  face  with  facts. 
They  will  insist  upon  going  to  the  bottom  of  any  matter 
they  have  to  deal  with.  That  genuine  intellectual 
honesty,  which  is  the  first  fruit  of  the  objective  study  of 
concrete  things,  will  make  them  scorn  to  defend,  in  dia- 
lectical and  rhetorical  practice,  theses  which  they  do 
not  thoroughly  believe.  They  will  grudge  every  hour 
spent  in  memorizing  matters  for  which  they  can  at  any 
time  resort  to  the  gazetteer  or  cyclopedia.  It  will  be 
hard  to  impose  on  such  students  with  sounding  names, 
deceive  them  with  sophistries,  or  bear  them  down  by 
authority.  They  will  care  much  for  principles;  little 
for  the  manner  in  which  these  may  be  dressed  up  for 
effect,  or  tricked  out  for  public  admiration. 


MANUAL  EDUCATION  IN  URBAN  COMMUNITIES.     191 

The  access  of  bodies  of  students  of  this  character  can- 
not but  profoundly  modify  the  subjects  and  the  methods 
of  instruction  of  any  school  they  enter;  and  every 
change  wrought  by  the  infusion  of  such  a  spirit  will  be 
sure  to  prove  of  benefit  to  scholar  and  to  school  alike. 

I  have,  thus  far,  spoken  only  of  the  educational  needs 
of  our  boys.  How  far  the  traditional  courses  of  study 
shall  be  modified  in  the  case  of  girls  is  a  nicer  question, 
respecting  which  it  will  not  be  unreasonable  to  await 
light  from  whatever  experiments  may  be  tried  with  chil- 
dren of  the  other  sex.  It  would  seem  to  be  the  dictate 
of  wisdom  to  solve  the  easier  part  of  the  problem  first. 

That  young  women  may  become  heartily  interested 
in  studies  and  exercises  in  the  mechanic  arts  and  may 
make  themselves  proficient  at  least  in  carpentry,  is 
established  by  our  experience  at  the  normal  schools  of 
Bridgewater  and  Salem,  Massachusetts.  That  such  in- 
struction, for  those  who  are  to  become  teachers,  yields 
a  professional  accomplishment  of  prime  importance, 
enabling  the  schoolmistress,  especially  in  the  rural  dis- 
tricts, to  make  and  repair  much  of  the  apparatus  for 
teaching  natural  and  physical  science,  is  evident.  This 
work  cannot  be  too  strongly  pressed  in  all  normal  and 
training  schools. 

As  regards  grammar  schools,  I  confess  that  my  ambi- 
tion would  be  satisfied,  for  the  present,  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  sewing  and  cooking,  imtil  the  full  capabilities  of 
these  two  kinds  of  school  exercises  should  be  fully  devel- 
oped and  fairly  tested.     The  triumphant  success  which 


192  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

has  attended  the  extension  of  sewing  through  the  lower 
grades  of  the  grammar  schools  of  Boston,  and  the  ad- 
mirable results  which  have  been  attained,  so  far  as  \he 
cutting,  fitting,  and  making  of  plain  garments  have 
been  introduced  into  the  upper  grades  of  three  districts,* 
have  put  this  school  exercise  beyond  the  stage  of  experi- 
ment. ISTo  intelligent  and  candid  person,  who  thor- 
oughly knows  the  work  done  in  this  department,  any 
longer  questions  either  the  practical  utiHty  of  the 
results  achieved  or  the  appropriateness  of  sewing  in 
the  school  curriculum,  as  a  strictly  educational 
agency. 

Of  equal  promise  of  good  to  our  citizenship  and,  as  I 
believe,  not  less  suited  to  the  prime  purposes  of  instruc- 
tion, is  the  newer  school  exercise  of  cooking.  So  tran- 
scendent are  the  social,  sanitary,  and  economic  advantages 
of  instruction  in  this  art,  in  enabling  the  very  poor  to 
husband  their  resources,  in  preserving  the  health  of  the 
community,  in  removing  baleful  and  destructive  appe- 
tites, in  promoting  the  comfort  and  decency  of  the 
family  home,  that  any  educator  would  be  abundantly 
justified,  were  that  necessary,  in  making  this  an  excep- 
tion to  the  rule  that  all  school  exercises  should  be  dis- 
tinctly educational.  Especially  in  view  of  the  great 
and  painful  change  in  our  citizenship  which  is  making 
such  rapid  progress  before  our  eyes,  does  it  become  a 
patriotic  duty  to  seize  upon  the  only  opportunity  which 
the  State  enjoys  of  reaching  the  members  of  the  rising- 
'  Sewing  is  now  a  part  of  the  course. — Ed. 


MANUAL  EDUCATION  IN  UBBAN  COMMUNITIES.     193 

generation,  and  to  employ  some  portion  of  the  time  of 
the  children  in  the  public  schools  for  instruction  in  do- 
mestic economy  and  in  the  art  of  preparing  food.  The 
practical  value  of  such  an  accomplishment,  in  the  degree 
in  which  it  may  be  acquired  in  a  single  brief  course,  is 
incontestably  greater,  to  girls  coming  from  poor  and 
squalid  homes,  as  so  many  tens  of  thousands  do,  than  all 
else  they  could  possibly  learn  in  school,  beyond  reading, 
writing,  and  plain  ciphering.  The  importance  to  the 
State  of  such  girls  acquiring  this  art,  is,  from  a  sanitary 
point  of  view,  from  an  economic  point  of  view,  and  from 
a  political  point  of  view,  greater  even  than  the  impor- 
tance of  the  elementary  knowledge  just  referred  to. 
We  are  threatened  to-day,  in  the  United  States,  with  a 
lowering  of  the  standard  of  living  and  with  an  impair- 
ment of  the  sense  of  social  decency  which  would  together 
constitute  a  greater  industrial  and  political  evil  than  we 
have  known.  All  the  letters  that  ever  were  taught  in 
our  public  schools  will  not  do  so  much  to  oppose  and 
counteract  these  unfortunate  liabilities  as  the  two  arts 
of  sewing  and  cooking,  properly  taught  under  the  au- 
thority of  the  State. 

But  we  are  not  driven  to  defend  the  introduction  of 
cooking  into  the  public  schools  as  an  invasion  of  the 
proper  field  of  education,  justified  by  dire  necessity. 
No  one  can  spend  an  hour  in  the  cooking  schools  of  Bos- 
ton, as  they  have  been  maintained,  first  through  the 
philanthropic  enterprise  of  Mrs.  Hemenway,  and  after- 
wards at  the  expense  of  the  city,  without  being  impressed 


IM  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

by  the  very  high  educational  value  of  the  instruction 
given. 

As  a  great  object  lesson  in  chemistry;  as  a  means  of 
promoting  care,  patience,  and  forethought;  as  a  study  of 
cause  and  effect;  as  a  medium  of  conveying  useful  infor- 
mation, irrespective  altogether  of  the  practical  value  of 
the  art  acquired;  the  short  course,  which  alone  the  means 
at  command  allowed  to  be  given  to  each  class  of  girls, 
has  constituted,  I  do  not  doubt,  the  best  body  of  purely 
educational  training  which  any  girl  of  all  those  classes 
ever  experienced  within  the  same  number  of  hours. 

I  will  mention  but  a  single  point.  The  very  large 
range  in  the  Tennygon-street  cooking  school  was,  during 
the  last  school  year,  ready  to  cook  any  of  the  dishes  that 
might  be  prepared  by  the  pupils,  from  half -past  nine  in 
the  morning  until  half-past  four  in  the  afternoon,  for 
five  days  in  the  week,  for  thirty-eight  weeks.  Fires 
were  made,  the  dampers  and  drafts  were  controlled  by 
the  pupils  under  the  direction  of  the  teacher.  The 
amount  of  coal  consumed  in  this  time  was  considerably 
less  than  two  tons.  Kow,  if  any  imhappy  householder 
here  present  will  compare  this  expenditure  of  fuel  with 
what  takes  place  in  his  own  kitchen,  he  cannot  fail  to 
be  impressed  by  a  sense  of  the  prudence,  patience,  care, 
forethought,  intelligence,  and  skill  involved  in  keeping 
up  such  a  service  at  so  small  a  cost.  If  this  be  not  edu- 
cational, pray  what  is  education?  And  what  is  true  of 
this  is  equally  true  of  all  the  other  exercises  in  the  cook- 
ing school,  under  proper  tuition. 


THE  RELATION  OF  MANUAL  TRAINING 

TO  CERTAIN  MENTAL  DEFECTS 

1895 


Bead  at  the  Sixtt-i-ifth  Annual  Meeting  of  thb 
American  Institxttb  op  Instruction,  July  9,  1895. 
From  Journal  of  Proceedings  of  the  American  IntUtute  qf 
Inttruction,  1895. 


THE  RELATION  OF  MANUAL  TRAINING  TO 
CERTAIN  MENTAL  DEFECTS. 

The  full  title  of  my  paper  is:  Manual  training  as  an 
agent  in  the  diagnosis  and  treatment  of  certain  mental 
defects;  but  that  statement  exaggerates  its  importance, 
since  what  I  shall  have  to  say  on  the  subject  is  merely  in 
the  nature  of  suggestion  and  inquiry.  I  have,  in  fact, 
no  results  to  announce ;  no  formed  conclusions,  even,  to 
express.  My  mind  has  been  drawn  within  the  last  few 
years  to  certain  phenomena  which  appear  to  intimate  the 
probability,  first,  that  mental  defects,  seriously  interfer- 
ing with  progress  in  study  and  with  success  in  the  affairs 
of  life,  may  exist  without  being  suspected  by  parents, 
teachers,  or  play-  and  school-mates;  secondly,  that  such 
defects  do  in  fact  exist  far  more  frequently  than  is  popu- 
larly supposed.  Brought  to  these  conclusions,  it  has 
seemed  to  me  that  manual  training, — or  the  practice  of 
the  mechanic  arts  as  a  means  of  instruction, — ^while  use- 
ful in  the  case  of  students  of  normal  minds  and  of  the 
best  abilities,  may  have  an  additional  and  most  impor- 
tant use  as  an  agent,  first  for  discovering  and  then  for 
treating,  these  defects.  Let  me  ask  your  attention, 
somewhat  at  length,  to  incidents  which  have  suggested 
the  probability  that  parent  and  teacher  and  play-  or 
school-mate  have  often  to  do  with  wholly  unsuspected 
defects  of  mental  constitution  and  organization.    • 

197 


198  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

A  few  years  ago  I  was  called  upon  to  act  as  the  chair- 
man of  a  committee  to  examine  candidates  for  West 
Point,  in  one  of  the  congressional  districts  of  Massa- 
chusetts. The  thirteen  candidates  were  subjected  to  the 
usual  examination  for  physical  soundness;  and  all  satis- 
factorily passed  the  test.  "When  we  came,  however,  to 
the  test  for  color-blindness,  a  young  man  whom  I  had  re- 
marked as  one  of  the  most  spirited,  intelligent,  and  fine- 
looking  of  the  group,  advanced  to  the  table  and  threw 
the  skeins  of  colored  worsteds  into  groups  so  absurd  as 
to  seem  actually  impossible.  One  moment  sufficed  to 
show  that  he  was  wholly  out  of  the  competition  and  en- 
tirely ineligible  for  military  service.  Here  was  a  young 
man,  evidently  of  more  than  usual  intelligence  and 
abihty,  who  had  gone  to  the  age  of  seventeen  or  eighteen 
without  any  suspicion  on  his  own  part  that  he  had  not 
the  normal  sense  respecting  color.  His  parents  and  the 
other  members  of  his  family  from  childhood  had  been 
accustomed  to  observe  him  in  his  dealings  inside  the 
house  with  colored  objects;  his  playmates  had  doubtless 
on  countless  occasions  made  reference  to  the  color  of 
objects;  and  yet  he  had  gone  through  all  this,  day  after 
day  and  year  after  year,  without  having  his  suspicion 
excited  that  what  they  saw  he  did  not  see,  and  he  had 
taken  the  trouble  to  prepare  himself  for  an  examination 
the  results  of  which  might  affect  his  whole  life,  without 
the  faintest  apprehension  of  his  disability.  I  remember 
to  have  heard  of  a  naval  officer  who  went  through  the 
war  and  was  afterwards  discharged  from  the  service  for  a 


MANUAL  TRAINING  AND  MENTAL  DEFECTS.     199 

long-unsuspected  color-blindness  which  was  almost  total; 
yet  for  years  he  had  been  dealing  with  color  signals  and 
colored  flags  and  ensigns.  It  is  well  known  that  the 
color  tests  introduced  by  boards  of  railroad  commis- 
sioners in  several  States  have  resulted  in  throwing  out 
not  a  few  locomotive  engineers  of  large  experience  who 
had  never  discovered  or  suspected  their  deficiencies. 

Take  another  instance :  a  gentleman  came  to  my  ofl3,ce 
to  introduce  his  son  as  an  applicant  for  admission  to  the 
Institute  of  Technology.  The  young  man  had  received 
an  appointment  to  the  Kaval  Academy  at  Annapolis; 
had  passed  the  text-book  examination;  had  passed  the 
ordinary  physical  examination;  had  gone  through  the 
test  for  color-blindness;  and  then  it  was  found  that  an 
object  which  he  could  see  distinctly  with  one  eye  at  the 
distance  of  twenty-seven  feet  had  to  be  brought  within 
eight  feet  to  be  seen  at  all  with  the  other  eye.  During 
all  his  childhood  and  boyhood  he  had  never  for  a  mo- 
ment suspected  the  existence  of  this  defect.  Let  me 
recite  still  another  case.  A  lady  of  my  acquaintance 
had  very  charitably  taken  into  her  household,  as  a  serv- 
ant, a  young  woman  who  was  subject  to  severe  nervous 
disorder.  She  could  get  employment  under  no  ordi- 
nary circumstances;  and  the  lady  I  refer  to  had  under- 
taken to  carry  a  part  of  her  burden  by  employing  her. 
After  the  lapse  of  some  weeks,  this  lady,  who  had  often 
observed  the  servant  very  closely  and  curiously  when 
engaged  at  her  work,  especially  while  sewing,  broke  out 
■with  an  exclamation,  "  Jane,  do  you  really  see  any- 


aOO  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

thing?"  The  girl  looked  up  in  great  surprise.  "Why, 
yes,  I  see  .perfectly  well."  Her  mistress  rejoined,  "  I 
do  not  believe  that  you  see  anything  as  we  see  it."  An 
esamination  by  an  oculist  followed;  and  it  was  ascer- 
tained that  the  girl's  entire  disorder  proceeded  from, 
eyes  that  were  simply  a  mass  of  defects  and  distortions. 
With  treatment  of  her  eyes,  the  nervous  affection  in  time 
ceased.  I  related  this  to  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
medical  men  in  INTew  York,  for  many  years  a  professor 
in  the  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons,  who  re- 
joined :  "  There  are  many  such  cases.  My  son,  a  cap- 
tain in  the  United  States  army,  for  yeai^  suffered  the 
greatest  agony  from  pains  in  his  head  and  the  back  of 
his  neck,  before  he  discovered  that  the  whole  trouble  was 
due  to  defects  of  vision." 

I  might  go  on  for  a  long  time  enumerating  similar 
instances  which  have  come  under  my  observation;  but 
what  has  been  said  will  suffice  to  justify  the  inquiry, 
whether,  if  such  defects,  in  such  degrees,  can  exist  in 
respect  to  matters  so  objective  and  so  completely  open 
to  observation  and  to  examination,  it  is  not  probable  that 
defects  of  mental  constitution  and  organization,  of  the 
gravest  nature,  are  found  in  every  schoolroom  and  in 
every  large  family;  and  that  much  of  what  the  parent  or 
the  teacher  takes  to  be  the  result  of  indifference,  willful- 
ness, or  neglect,  is  due  to  mental  distortions,  perversions, 
obliquities,  lesions,  and  breaches  of  continuity,  which 
have  as  distinct  and  decided  an  effect  in  preventing  the 
proper  and  normal  action  of  the  child's  mind  upon  what 


MANUAL  TRAINING  AND  MENTAL  DEFECTS.     201 

is  sought  to  be  presented  to  it,  as  would  tlie  most  object- 
ive deficiencies  and  injuries  to  the  organs  of  sense.  If 
parents  and  teachers  and  playmates  and  schoolmates  can 
fail,  through  years,  to  see,  or  even  to  suspect,  the  exist- 
ence of  color-blindness,  for  example,  is  it  not  possible, 
and  even  highly  probable,  that  defects  more  deeply 
seated  and  of  a  more  obscure  character  are  the  cause  of 
no  small  part  of  the  failures  of  the  schoolroom? 

In  connection  with  the  preparation  of  this  paper,  a 
Boston  physician  has  told  me  of  a  case  recently  com- 
ing under  his  knowledge  where  a  young  man  had  gradu- 
ally become  almost  totally  deaf  through  the  slow  process 
of  the  disease  called  adenoids,  without  his  father,  a  prac- 
ticing physician,  suspecting  the  existence  of  the  trouble 
until  a  late  stage  of  the  deafness  had  been  reached. 
Now,  in  the  case  of  such  a  child,  whatever  is  said  loudly 
and  distinctly  is  heard.  The  moment  the  teacher's  voice 
drops  below  a  certain  point,  or  her  back  is  turned,  or  her 
speech  becomes  hurried  and  confused,  the  child  loses  all 
or  a  part  of  what  is  uttered.  Some  thing  he  makes  out ; 
perhaps  by  suggestion  from  what  he  has  caught,  perhaps 
by  observation  of  the  teacher's  lips  or  gestures;  some 
other  thing  he  drops  entirely;  a  third  thing,  still,  he  gets 
wrong.  The  result  is  partial  failure  in  his  work.  He 
does  not  understand  the  true  cause.  His  teacher  does 
not  suspect  it.  In  the  same  way,  there  must  be  in- 
stances of  mental  defects  where  a  more  than  usual  effort 
on  the  part  of  the  teacher,  a  more  than  usual  degree  of 
attention  on  the  part  of  the  pupil,  enable  the  current  of 


202  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

thought  to  jump  the  broken  wire  and  pass  to  its  object; 
but  any  slackening  of  effort  on  the  part  of  the  teacher, 
or  of  attention  on  the  part  of  the  pupil,  allows  the  cmv 
rent  to  become  dispersed  and  to  remain  without  effect. 

It  is  not  for  a  moment  supposed  that  the  thought 
above  presented  is  not  familiar  to  all  students  of  the 
mind  and  to  all  teachers  of  youth.  The  only  contribu- 
tion which  I  can  hope  to  make,  is  in  urging  the  con- 
sideration that  mental  defects  corresponding  to  the 
defects  in  the  organs  of  sense  of  which  illustrations  have 
been  given,  are  vastly  more  frequent  than  we  have  been 
accustomed  to  believe  and  demand  greater  attention 
from  us  in  dealing  with  individual  pupils ;  and,  secondly, 
that  we  have  in  manual  training  an  agent  for  a  diagnosis 
of  some,  at  least,  of  these  defects  and,  though  doubtless 
in  a  lower  degree,  for  a  treatment  of  them.  We  go  into 
an  orthopedic  hospital  and  our  very  souls  are  torn  with 
the  spectacle  of  distortion  and  perversion  and  deformity 
which  we  there  witness  on  every  hand;  but  we  comfort 
ourselves  by  saying,  "  Thank  God!  it  is  only  one  child 
in  a  hundred  who  is  thus  afflicted."  For  my  part  I  be- 
lieve that  the  cases  of  mental  distortion,  perversion, 
and  deformity  are  far,  far  more  frequent;  and  I  cannot 
help  believing  that  it  is  to  such  unsuspected  disabilities 
and  infirmities  of  the  pupil  that  we  owe  a  very  large  part 
of  the  failures  of  the  schoolroom  which  pass  for  instances 
of  heedlessness,  willfulness,  and  even  positively  bad 
purpose. 

If,  then,  it  is  reasonable  to  believe  that  defects  of  men- 


MANUAL  TRAINING  AND  MENTAL  DEFECTS.     203 

tal  constitution  and  organization,  corresponding  to 
defects  in  the  organs  of  sense,  do  exist  in  regard  to  any 
large  part  of  our  school  children,  it  seems  to  me  clear 
that  we  have  in  manual  training,  so  called, — that  is,  the 
systematic  practice  of  the  mechanic  arts  in  connection 
with  drawing,  as  a  means  of  school  instruction, — a  very 
important  agent,  at  least  for  their  discovery. 

If  to  the  traditional  studies  we  add  manual  training, 
we  have  not  only  another  test  of  application  and 
capacity — a  thing  in  itseK  of  great  importance,  inas- 
much as,  by  bringing  in  a  new  kind  of  test,  we  may 
largely  correct  the  errors  of  the  test  afforded  by  text- 
book studies  merely — but  we  have  a  test  peculiarly 
suited  to  bring  out  the  cause  of  any  degree  of  failure  in 
the  performance  of  work.  In  the  first  place,  the  results 
of  good  or  bad  work  with  tools  and  upon  materials  can 
be  measured  and  gauged  and  "  sized  up  "  with  an  accu- 
racy which  is  not  attainable  in  estimating  the  character 
of  the  work  done  in  most  of  the  traditional  studies  of  the 
schoolroom.  The  teacher  can  see  exactly  in  what  de- 
gree the  child  has  failed,  and  the  child  can  see  it  for 
himself,  which  is  far  from  being  always  the  case  with 
recitations  and  examinations.  Not  only  so,  but  the 
teacher,  as  I  believe,  finds  out  much  more  nearly  the 
cause  of  failure  in  such  work.  If  there  is  any  tendency 
to  misunderstand  instructions  and  directions;  if  there  are 
any  defects  in  the  child's  organs  of  sense  or  any  broken 
wires  in  his  mind,  a  penetrating  teacher  ought  to  be  able, 
by  repeated  experiment,  to  ascertain  the  fact.     The  ob- 


804  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

jective  character  of  the  work,  the  closeness  with  which 
the  results  can  be  measured  and  gauged  and  criticised, 
and  especially  the  aid  derived  by  the  teacher  from  the 
fact  that  the  pupil  is  almost  invariably  desirous,  and  de- 
sirous in  a  high  degree,  of  doing  his  shop-work  perfectly, 
all  these  combine,  it  appears  to  me,  to  make  certain  that 
a  child  will  not  pass  through  any  very  long  course  of 
study,  in  a  school  where  such  exercises  are  systematically 
conducted,  without  the  discovery  of  any  physical  or 
mental  defect  which  may  exist.  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  in  all  cases,  or  even  in  the  majority  of  cases,  the 
seat  of  the  trouble  will  be  precisely  hit  upon;  but  at 
least  enough  will  be  learned  to  give  the  pupil  fair  warn- 
ing that  he  does  suffer  from  some  disability  which  he 
must  make  special  effort  to  overcome;  at  least  enough 
will  be  learned  to  put  pupil  and  teacher  in  a  bet- 
ter relation  of  mutual  understanding  and  mutual 
respect. 

Should  the  manual  training  exercises  disclose  defects 
of  mental  constitution  and  organization,  I  believe  that 
these  same  exercises  may  be  used  by  the  teacher  most 
directly  and  beneficially  in  the  treatment  of  such  defects. 
Even  though  the  teacher  should  not  be  so  gifted  as  to  be 
able  to  make  the  pupil's  work  discover  the  cause  of  total 
or  partial  failure,  or  of  special  weaknesses  or  infirmities, 
I  still  believe  that  the  mere  practice  of  the  mechanic  arts 
is  the  best  possible  regimen  and  gymnastic  to  which  a 
mind  in  any  degree  falling  off  from  the  normal,  or  suffer- 
ing from  any  perversions  or  deformities,  can  be  sub- 


MANUAL  TRAINING  AND  MENTAL  DEFECTS.     205 

jected.  "What  orthopedic  surgery  is  to  the  body,  such, 
I  believe,  manual  training  in  childhood  is  to  the  mind. 
I  care  comparatively  little  for  its  influence  upon  eye  or 
band.  Its  chief  work  in  my  view  is  educational;  and 
in  that  educational  work  I  place  foremost  its  power  of 
rectifying  the  mind  itself,  of  straightening  the  crooked 
limb, — so  to  speak, — of  strengthening  the  weak  joint, 
of  healing  the  lesion  which,  if  not  cured,  will  proceed 
to  deep  and  irreparable  injury.  Not  one  of  us  but  has 
seen  seemingly  hopeless  cases  of  deformity  and  weak- 
ness in  childhood  completely  cured  by  the  splints,  the 
massage,  the  fomentations,  and  the  heroic  surgery  of  the 
orthopedist.  As  I  write,  I  recall  the  images  of  school- 
mates and  playmates  doomed  apparently  to  hopeless 
suffering  and  weakness,  who  are,  to-day,  by  reason  of 
such  treatment,  straight,  vigorous,  and  comely  beyond 
the  standard  of  their  race.  A  benefit  similar  in  kind 
can  be  wrought,  I  believe,  in  the  case  of  many  children 
who  enter  our  schools  suffering  from  inherited  and  ac- 
quired defects  of  mental  constitution  and  organization, 
by  the  judicious  and  intelligent  use  of  the  mechanic 
arts  as  educational  instruments.  I  am  not  speaking  for 
the  more  gifted  and  fortunate  of  our  pupils,  though 
entertaining  the  strong  conviction  that  manual  training 
properly  applied  in  schools,  freed  from  the  crudities  and 
errors  incidental  to  the  introduction  of  any  new  system, 
will  prove  of  great  educational  benefit  to  the  brightest 
and  best  of  our  scholars.  I  am  speaking  for  a  great 
body  of  children  who,  but  for  this  new  instrument  of 


206  MANUAL  EDUCATION. 

education  in  the  hands  of  intelligent  and  skillful  teach- 
ers, may  go  into  life  with  serious  mental  defects  uncor- 
rected, and  even  unsuspected;  defects  which  will  grow 
more  serious  and  more  hopeless  with  the  progress  of 
time  and  with  experience  of  life. 


THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  PRIMARY  AND 
GRAMMAR  SCHOOLS 

1887 


Address  beforb  the  School  Committee  op  the 
City  of  Boston,  April  12,  1887.  Published  as  School 
Document  No.  9, 1887. 


Largely  because  of  President  Walker's  vigorous 
efforts,  more  rational  methods  of  teaching  arith- 
metic have  been  followed  in  Boston  during  and 
since  his  service  upon  the  School  Committee. 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  PRIMARY  AND  GRAMMAR 
SCHOOLS. 

When  I  moved,  last  winter,  the  resolution  which  has 
become  the  subject  of  the  report  of  the  Committee  on 
Examinations  this  evening,  it  was  without  any  purpose 
of  taking  part  in  the  inquiry  proposed.  But  the  course 
of  public  discussion  since  that  time,  and  my  own  appoint- 
ment to  the  Committee  on  Examinations,  have  seemed 
to  require  something  to  be  said  by  me  regarding  those 
features  of  the  study  of  arithmetic  in  our  common 
schools  to  which  exception  has  been  taken,  and  which 
the  Committee,  through  their  chairman,  have  unani- 
mously recommended  should  be  reformed  in  part  or  re- 
formed altogether.^  And,  first,  it  may  be  said  that,  if 
there  be  any  reason  whatsoever  for  believing  that  the 
course  in  arithmetic  can  be  simplified  and  shortened,  the 
matter  is  not  one  of  slight  importance.  The  cry  of  over- 
work frequently  comes  from  pupils,  parents,  and  phy- 
sicians who  are  undoubtedly  sincere,  even  if  mistaken  in 
this  view;  while  if  we  reject  the  plea  of  overwork  and 
conclude  that  the  amount  of  study  required  of  our  chil- 
dren is,  as  an  aggregate,  not  too  large,  we  still  have  to 
encounter  the  almost  unanimous  complaint  of  teachers 
that  studies  are  set  down  in  the  official  courses  which 

'  These  recommendations  appear,  in  substance,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  following  address.     See  p.  235  infra.— Ed. 

209 


210  THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

they  have  not  time  to  teach  as  they  ought  to  be  taught, 
many  going  so  far  as  to  say  that  it  would  be  better  that 
some  of  these  subjects  should  not  be  broached  at  all  if 
they  are  not  to  be  dealt  with  more  thoroughly  and 
systematically  than  is  possible  at  present  with  the 
time  allowed.  If,  then,  the  course  in  arithmetic  can 
be  abridged,  without  injury  on  that  side  of  our  public 
schools,  we  know  very  well  what  to  do  with  the  time  so 
released.  It  may  be  applied,  in  the  discretion  of  the 
School  Board,  either  to  relieve  the  pupils  from  the  gen- 
eral strain  of  their  work,  or  to  allow  the  further  cultiva- 
tion of  natural  science,  or  to  afford  additional  practice 
in  the  art  of  observation,  or  to  make  way  for  the  new 
mechanical  and  industrial  exercises  demanded  by  so 
many  of  our  citizens. 

Let  me  not  be  understood  as  disparaging  the  impor- 
tance of  the  proper  study  of  arithmetic  in  our  public 
schools. 

]^o  one  has  a  higher  appreciation  of  the  vital,  practical 
importance  of  having  our  children  taught  to  perform 
ordinary  arithmetical  operations  with  absolute  accuracy 
and  with  a  good  degree  of  facility.  Indeed,  it  is  one  of 
the  gravest  accusations  brought  against  our  public 
schools,  as  at  present  administered,  that  the  old-fashioned 
readiness  and  correctness  of  "  ciphering  "  have  been,  to 
a  large  degree,  sacrificed  by  the  methods  which  it  is  now 
proposed  to  reform.  A  false  arithmetic  has  grown  up 
and  has  largely  crowded  out  of  place  that  true  arithmetic 
which  is  nothing  but  the  art  of  numbers.     But  to  this 


ABITEMETIG  IN  TEE  COMMON  SCHOOLS.         211 

point  there  will  be  a  more  fitting  occasion  to  advert 
further  on.  The  question  as  to  the  amount  of  arith- 
metical study  at  present  desirable  cannot  be  properly 
understood  without  reference  to  the  courses  of  study  in 
our  schools  a  generation  ago.  At  that  time,  with  the 
whole  week,  excepting  only  Saturday  afternoon,  at  the 
disposal  of  the  teacher,  the  studies  in  the  district  school 
were  few  and  simple.  Reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic, 
a  little  grammar,  and  a  little  political  geography,  made 
up  substantially  the  course  of  study.  In  this  condition 
there  was  not  only  no  reason  to  scrutinize  carefully  the 
amount  of  time  used  for  arithmetic,  but  that  study  was 
naturally  and  properly  looked  to  for  a  considerable  part 
of  the  mental  training  of  the  child.  Increasingly, 
within  the  last  thirty,  twenty,  and  ten  years,  new  studies 
in  great  variety  have  been  introduced  into  our  school 
courses,  some  of  which  are  better  suited  for  the  purposes 
of  intellectual  training  than  is  arithmetic  itself. 

Thus  we  have,  in  addition  to  the  simple  political 
geography  of  an  earlier  day,  the  extended  study  of 
physical  geography,  rising  into  what  were  once  the  mys- 
teries of  meteorology. 

In  illustration  of  this  point,  allow  me  to  quote  from 
the  official  course  of  study,  as  revised  and  simplified  in 

1885: 

Class  IV.  (Three  hours  a  week). — Second  stage  of  the  study  of 
geography.  1.  Study  of  the  earth  as  a  globe;  simple  Illustrations 
and  statements  with  reference  to  form;  size;  meridians  and  parallels, 
with  their  use;  motions,  and  their  effects;  zones,  with  their  charac- 
teristics; winds  and  ocean  currents;  climate  as  affecting  the  life  of 
man  (occupations,  manners,  customs,  etc.). 


312  THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

2.  Physical  features  and  conditions  of  North  America,  South 
America,  and  Europe  studied  and  compared;  position  on  the  globe; 
position  relative  to  other  grand  divisions;  size;  form;  surface;  drain- 
age; climate;  life  (vegetable,  animal,  human);  regions  adapted  to 
mining,  agriculture,  etc.;  natural  advantages  of  cities;  comparison  of 
physical  features  and  conditions  of  one  grand  division  with  those  of 
other  grand  divisions.  Map-drawing  as  the  study  of  each  grand 
division  proceeds.  Other  grand  divisions  to  be  studied  if  there  be 
time. 

Such  are  the  subjects  now  prescribed  for  our  children 
of  eleven  and  twelve  years  of  age.  After  the  comple- 
tion of  this  body  of  study,  the  child  has  still  three  years 
of  geographical  study  before  graduating  from  the  gram- 
mar school.  Again,  we  have  a  large  body  of  elemen- 
tary science,  extended  through  the  nine  years  of  the  pri- 
mary and  grammar  schools,  regarding  which  I  will  only 
quote  the  curriculum  of  two  years: 

Class  II.  (One  hour  and  thirty  minutes  a  week). — Physiology  and 
hygiene. 

1.  Growth  and  renewal  of  parts  of  the  body,  how  secured. 

(a)  The  digestive  apparatus  and  digestion.    Food,  the  quality  and 
quantity  of,  etc. 
(5)  Circulation,  the  organs  of.    The  blood  as  a  circulating  medium, 
(c)  Respiration,  the  organs  of.    Ventilation.    The  vocal  apparatus. 

2.  (a)  The  digestive  organs  of  man  and  other  animals,  compared. 
(J)  Their  modes  of  breathing,  compared,  (c)  The  amount  of  animal 
heat,  compared. 

Class  I.  (Two  hours  a  week). — Physics.  Common  facts  learned 
from  observation  and  experiment,  in  regard  to  as  many  of  the  follow- 
ing topics  as  the  assigned  time  will  allow:  1,  matter,  its  properties, 
its  three  states;  2,  motion  and  force,  laws  of  motion;  3,  gravitation: 
equilibrium,  pendulum;  4,  lever,  wheel  and  axle,  pulley,  inclined 
plane,  wedge,  screw;  5,  liquid  pressure;  specific  gravity;  6.  atmos- 
pheric pressure;  barometer,  pumps,  siphon;  7,  electricity,  frictional 
and  current;  conductors,  magnetism,  compass,  magnetic  telegraph; 
8,  sound;  pitch  of  sounds,  echoes,  acoustic  tubes;  9,  heat;  diffusion, 
effects,  thermometers;  10,  light;  reflection,  refraction,  lenses,  solar 
spectrum,  color. 


ABITHMETIC  IN  THE  COMMON  SCHOOLS.         2 1 3 

But  these  are  not  all  the  new  subjects  to  which  pupils 
are  now  required  to  give  their  time  and  attention.  In 
addition  to  the  old-fashioned  "  parsing,"  with  an  occa- 
sional composition,  we  now  have  studies  in  English 
literature  and  the  history  of  the  English  language  jus- 
tifying, it  would  appear,  such  questions  on  examination 
as  "  changes  in  the  English  language  from  the  time  of 
the  l^orman  conquest  to  the  death  of  Chaucer," — a 
question  unknown  to  the  high  school  and  preparatory 
academy  of  a  generation  ago,  and  even  to  the  earlier 
years  of  the  college  curriculum.  Moreover,  we  have 
music  and  drawing  pursued  systematically  and  at  great 
length  through  the  entire  course  of  the  primary 
and  the  grammar  school.  It  is  not  necessary  to  take 
the  time  of  the  committee  for  further  enumeration  of 
subjects  of  study  which  have  been  forced  into  the 
school  week,  which,  far  from  being  longer  than  it  was 
a  generation  ago,  is  shorter  by  one-half  of  Satur- 
day. It  is  evident  that,  if  so  much  must  come  in, 
something  must  go  out  to  make  room  for  it;  and, 
secondly,  that  we  have,  in  these  new  studies,  means  for 
much  of  that  training  of  the  child's  powers  which  our 
fathers  looked  to  arithmetic  to  accomplish.  "  That 
mathematics,"  says  Sir  William  Hamilton,  "  can  pos- 
sibly, in  their  study,  educate  to  any  active  exercise  of 
the  power  of  observation,  either  as  reflected  upon  our- 
selves, or  as  directed  on  the  affairs  of  life  and  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature,  will  not,  we  presume,  be  maintained." 
"  That  they  do  not  cultivate  the  power  of  generaliza- 


214  THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

tion,"  he  continues,  "  is  equally  apparent."  "  But  the 
study  of  mathematical  demonstration  is  mainly  recom- 
mended as  a  practice  of  reasoning  in  general;  and  it  is 
precisely  as  such  a  practice  that  its  inutility  is  perhaps 
the  greatest."  "  Are  mathematics  then,"  he  concludes, 
"  of  no  value  as  an  instrument  of  mental  culture?  To 
this  we  answer,  that  their  study,  if  pursued  in  modera- 
tion, and  efl3.ciently  counteracted,  may  be  beneficial  in 
the  correction  of  a  certain  vice,  and  in  the  formation  of 
its  corresponding  virtue.  The  vice  is  the  habit  of  men- 
tal distraction;  the  virtue,  the  habit  of  continuous  atten- 
tion. This  is  the  single  benefit  to  which  the  study  of 
mathematics  can  justly  pretend  in  the  cultivation  of  the 
mind." 

Such  was  the  opinion  of  England's  greatest  phi- 
losopher, in  this  century  at  least.  Reverting,  now,  to 
the  course  of  study  in  the  primary  and  grammar  schools 
of  Boston,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  some  of  the  new 
subjects  of  study,  if  properly  pursued,  will  not  only 
educate  to  an  active  exercise  of  the  power  of  observa- 
tion, will  not  only  cultivate  the  power  of  generalization, 
will  not  only  afford  excellent  practice  of  reasoning  in 
general,  but  will  also  serve  to  create  the  habit  of  con- 
tinuous attention,  as  well  as  or  even  better  than  mathe- 
matics. Certainly  the  attention  given  by  a  class  of 
interested  children  in  the  study  of  natural  history,  under 
a  good  teacher,  is  far  closer  and  much  more  truly  educa- 
tional than  the  attention  given  by  pupils  who  are  driven 
reluctantly  through  an  arid  waste  of  mathematics. 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  COMMON  SCHOOLS.         215 

I  reach  the  conclusion,  then,  that  not  only  the  de- 
mands upon  the  time  of  our  pupils,  but  the  character  of 
the  subjects  of  study,  new  to  this  age,  justifies  and  re- 
quires that  arithmetic  be  restricted  to  that  amount  which 
is  needed  to  give  facility  and  accuracy,  in  ordinary 
numerical  operations,  with  a  view  to  the  use  to  which 
this  power  is  to  be  put,  either  in  practical  life,  or  in  sub- 
sequent and  higher  studies.  The  amount  of  time  now 
expended  upon  the  study  of  arithmetic  by  the  revised 
course  is  as  follows:  In  the  primary  school,  class  3,  three 
hours  thirty  minutes  per  week;  class  2,  four  hours;  class 
1,  four  hours  thirty  minutes.  Grammar  school,  class  6, 
four  hours  thirty  minutes  per  week;  class  5,  four  hours 
thirty  minutes;  class  4,  five  hours;  class  3,  five  hours; 
class  2,  four  hours  thirty  minutes;  class  1,  four  hours. 
During  the  second  half  of  the  last  year,  two  hours  and  a 
half  additional  per  week  are  devoted  to  the  study  of 
book-keeping;  but  to  this  I  shall  not  advert. 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  nearly  four  hours  and  a 
half  a  week,  or  almost  exactly  one^fifth  of  the  entire 
school-time,  are  devoted  to  the  study  of  arithmetic,  on 
the  average,  during  the  nine  years  of  school  life,  accord- 
ing to  the  prescribed  courses.  But  it  also  appears,  from 
the  results  of  an  investigation  made  last  winter  at  the  in- 
stance of  this  Committee,  that  this  allowance  of  time  is, 
in  many  cases,  exceeded,  in  some  cases  exceeded  con- 
siderably, during  school  hours;  while  it  also  appears  that 
in  thirty-six  school  districts  home  lessons  in  arithmetic 
are,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  assigned.     It  is  in  the  be- 


216  THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITUMETIG. 

lief  that  our  pupils  could  acquire  all  needed  facility  and 
accuracy  in  numerical  operations  in  less  than  the  time 
now  devoted  to  arithmetic,  that  the  Committee  have  in- 
cluded in  their  report  two  propositions — one,  that  home 
lessons  in  arithmetic  shall  be  given  out  in  exceptional 
cases  only;  another,  to  establish  the  average  time  to  be 
devoted  to  the  study  of  arithmetic  at  three  hours  and  a 
half  per  week.  It  is  my  personal  belief  that  this  reduc- 
tion may  ultimately  proceed  even  further  to  advantage, 
and  that  the  average  child  could  acquire  as  much  accu- 
racy and  facility  in  this  regard  as  would  be  desired,  if 
properly  instructed  in  simple  numerical  operations  for 
three  hours  a  week  through  a  term  of  five  years. 

At  the  present  time  the  results  in  accuracy,  if  not  in 
facility,  of  arithmetical  work  leave  very  much  to  be  de- 
sired. Scarcely  has  the  child  been  taught  to  count  as 
high  as  ten,  when  he  is  put  at  technical  applications  of 
arithmetic  to  money-coins,  to  divisions  of  time,  space, 
etc.;  and  these  technical  applications  are  increased  in 
number  and  in  difficulty  through  the  successive  ye^ps  of 
the  grammar  school,  until  for  a  large  amount  of  so-called 
arithmetic  the  pupil  gets  comparatively  little  practice  in 
the  art  of  numbers.  I  am  far  from  saying  that  the 
pupils  of  our  public  schools  should  not  acquire  a  certain 
amount  of  useful  information.  The  most  familiar  tables 
of  lengths,  weights,  measures,  and  coins  may  properly 
be  given  to  them,  and  they  may  advantageously  be  prac- 
ticed in  simple  operations  thereunder.  But  this  whole 
matter  of  the  technical  applications  of  arithmetic  should 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  COMMON  SCHOOLS.         2 1 7 

be  treated  in  a  highly  conservative  spirit.  Of  late  years 
there  has  been  some  reform  in  this  particular,  and  a  few 
of  the  monstrosities  of  the  old  curriculum, — notably  our 
ancient  enemy,  duodecimals, — ^have  been  thrown  over- 
board. But  there  still  remain  many  things,  as  taught  in 
our  schools,  which  occupy  time  that  could  better  be  de- 
voted to  the  study  of  other  subjects,  or,  at  least,  to  a 
greater  degree  of  practice  in  simple  operations.  The 
report  of  the  Committee  on  Examinations  contains 
propositions  for  a  very  extensive  retrenchment  on  this 
side.  Compound  interest,  compound  proportion,  com- 
pound partnership,  cube  root  and  its  applications,  equa- 
tion of  payments,  exchange,  "  similar  surfaces,"  and  the 
mensuration  of  the  trapezoid  and  trapezium,  of  the 
prism,,  pyramid,  cone,  and  sphere,  are  proposed  to  be 
dropped  from  the  course  in  the  grammar  school.  If 
these  subjects  are  to  be  studied,  it  should  be  in  the  high 
school.  Another  change  in  this  direction  is  in  the 
proposition  to  remove  from  the  grammar  school  the 
study  of  the  metric  system. 

The  Committee  believe  that,  in  the  present  state  of 
our  laws  and  commercial  usages,  the  metric  system  is  a 
proper  subject  for  extended  study  in  high  schools  only. 
The  introduction  of  this  subject  so  widely  into  the  public 
schools  of  the  United  States  has  been  due,  not  to  an  ap- 
preciation of  the  practical  advantages  of  this  instruction 
to  the  existing  body  of  pupils,  but  to  a  propaganda  for 
the  promotion  of  legislation  on  the  part  of  Congress  and 
the  legislatures  of  the  several  States,  looking  to  the  gen- 


218  THE  TEACHINO  OF  ARITHMETIC, 

eral  adoption  of  the  metric  system.  Tlie  Committee 
object  to  having  the  children  of  Boston  used  any  longer 
as  an  agency  for  promoting  that  object,  however  in  itself 
desirable.  Not  one  child  in  a  hundred,  or  in  three  hun- 
dred, who  has  left  the  schools  of  Massachusetts  during 
the  last  ten  years,  to  go  to  work,  has  ever  once  had  occa- 
sion to  use  the  metric  system  for  any  practical  purpose. 
The  few  who  may  be  called  to  make  use  of  this  system 
could  readily  acquire  such  portions  of  it  as  they  might 
need,  from  their  employers  or  their  fellow-employees. 
In  pursuit  of  the  same  object,  it  is  further  provided  in 
the  report  of  the  Committee  that  all  exercises  in  frac- 
tions, commission,  discount,  and  proportion  shall  be  con- 
fined to  small  sums  and  to  simple  subjects  and  processes, 
the  main  purpose  throughout  being  to  secure  accuracy 
and  a  reasonable  degree  of  facility  in  plain,  ordinary 
ciphering.  Who  of  us  has  not  seen  in  the  hands  of  chil- 
dren of  eleven,  twelve,  and  thirteen  years  of  age, 
examples  in  "  compound  and  complex  fractions  "  which 
were  more  difficult  than  any  operation  which  any  bank 
cashier  in  the  city  of  Boston  has  occasion  to  perform,  in 
the  course  of  his  business,  from  January  to  December? 
The  most  jagged  fractions,  such  as  would  hardly  ever  be 
found  in  actual  business  operations,  e.  g.,^  or  ff^,  are 
piled  one  on  top  of  another,  to  produce  an  unreal 
and  impossible  difficulty;  and  the  child,  having  been 
furnished  with  such  an  arithmetical  monstrosity,  is 
set  to  multiplying  or  dividing  it  by  another  "  compound 
and  complex  fraction  "  as  unreal  and  ridiculous  as  itself. 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  COMMON  SCHOOLS.  219 

All  this  sort  of  thing  in  the  teaching  of  young  children 
is  either  useless  or  mischievous.  It  is  bad  psychology, 
bad  physiology,  and  bad  pedagogics.  Every  pupil,  by 
the  time  he  leaves  the  grammar  school,  should  be  taught 
to  use  small  sums  infallibly,  in  multiplication  and  divi- 
sion, and  to  add  columns  of  figures  as  long  as  an  ordi- 
nary housekeeper's  book  or  bank-deposit  book,  almost 
beyond  the  possibility  of  ever  committing  an  error. 
This  nearly  every  child  of  ordinary  brightness  can  be 
brought  to  do,  and  that  in  a  small  part  of  the  time  now 
devoted  to  the  so-called  study  of  arithmetic.  It  is  not 
necessary  that  the  pupil  should  be  brought  to  do  this 
thing  with  rapidity.  Only  a  reasonable  facility  should 
be  aimed  at.  If  a  boy  is  to  go  into  some  line  of  work 
where  figures  are  used  only  incidentally  and  occasion- 
ally, he  will  have  facility  enough  for  the  purpose.  It  is 
only  necessary  that  he  should  be  infallibly  accurate;  and 
this  any  good  teacher  ought  to  be  able  to  secure  in  five 
years,  seven  years,  or  nine  years  of  drill.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  boy  is  to  go  into  a  position  where  his  main 
work  is  to  be  concerned  with  figures,  he  will  readily 
enough  acquire  the  necessary  facility,  if  only  accuracy 
has  been  secured  during  the  years  of  especial  mental 
growth  and  training.  If,  however,  his  training  has 
been  loose  and  unsystematic,  no  amount  of  practice  will 
give  him  accuracy;  the  faster  he  works,  the  more  mis- 
takes he  will  make.  Nor  is  it  easy,  if,  indeed,  it  be  at 
all  practicable,  to  remedy  the  defects  of  early  education 
in  the  case  of  one  who  has  passed  the  age  of  fifteen  or 


220  THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

sixteen  without  that  training  and  drill  in  the  use  of 
figures  which  would  make  mistakes  in  simple  operations 
almost  impossible. 

Unfortunately,  in  this  matter  of  inaccuracy  in  the  use 
of  figures,  resulting  from  the  manner  in  which  arith- 
metic is  now  taught  in  our  schools,  the  evidence  is  over- 
whelming in  character  and  amount.  Our  technical 
schools  receive  pupils  from  the  high  schools  who,  while 
they  understand  difiicult  theorems,  and  are  masters  of 
complicated  algebraic  formulse,  make  mistakes  in  the 
simplest  arithmetical  operations.  If  the  high  schools 
are  blamed  for  this,  the  masters  justify  themselves  by 
alleging  that  pupils  come  to  them — as  a  high-school 
teacher  said  to  me  within  two  weeks — ^without  being 
able  to  add  or  multiply,  to  subtract  and  divide,  or  even 
to  count,  with  accuracy. 

The  grammar-school  masters,  if  appealed  to,  are 
obliged  to  admit  the  deficiencies  of  their  graduates;  but 
they  ask,  what  better  can  be  expected  when  only  a  small 
fraction,  often  a  contemptibly  small  fraction,  of  the 
time  nominally  devoted  to  the  study  of  arithmetic  can 
be  given  to  numerical  operations,  consistently  with 
bringing  their  pupils  up  to  the  bar,  duly  loaded  and 
primed  for  examination  in  countless  technical  applica- 
tions of  arithmetical  rules,  and  consistently  with  giving 
them  that  flexibility  for  the  purposes  of  arithmetical 
gymnastics  which  the  practical  and  illustrative  prob- 
lems of  the  text-books  require? 

But  it  is  not  alone  the  teachers  of  the  high  schools 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  COMMON  SCHOOLS.         221 

who  have  occasion  to  complain  of  the  way  in  which  the 
study  of  arithmetic  is  conducted  under  the  prevailing 
system.  The  employers  of  those  boys  and  girls  who 
leave  the  grammar  school  to  go  to  work,  have  occasion 
to  complain,  and  do  complain  bitterly,  of  the  deficiencies 
of  our  instruction  on  this  side.  After  very  extensive  in- 
quiries, conducted  through  the  past  year,  I  do  not  find 
it  possible  to  entertain  a  doubt  that  the  old-fashioned 
facility  and  accuracy  in  ciphering  have  been  largely  sac- 
rificed to  the  numerous  technical  applications  and  diffi- 
cult logical  puzzles  which  have  been  introduced  into  the 
instruction  in  arithmetic,  and  that  our  children  leave  the 
schools  very  ill-prepared,  in  this  respect,  for  the  practical 
work  of  life.  !N'ow,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  greater 
wrong,  short  of  a  permanent  injury  to  health,  that  can 
be  done  to  a  child,  than  to  send  him  into  the  world  to 
earn  his  living  without  the  ability  to  conduct  numerical 
operations  accurately  and  with  reasonable  facility. 
Employers  have,  literally,  no  use  for  boys  who  make 
mistakes  in  numbers.  Such  a  failing  offsets  the  best 
training  otherwise  of  mind  and  hand. 

In  a  store  or  shop  or  factory,  or  on  a  railroad,  a  lad 
who  cannot  set  down  figures  and  add  them  right  every 
time  is  little  better  than  a  cripple.  The  master  of  one 
of  our  high  schools  told  me  recently  of  having  been  in- 
formed by  the  president  of  a  Boston  bank  that,  at  an 
examination  held  during  the  year  with  reference  to  an 
appointment  in  his  institution,  out  of  several  graduates 
of  various  high  schools  of  this  vicinity  not  one  was  found 


222  THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

able  to  add  the  columns  of  figures  given  to  him,  with- 
out errors.  It  is  little  wonder  that  this  should  be  the 
result,  when,  of  the  time  devoted  to  arithmetic,  four- 
fifths  or  nine-tenths  is  occupied  by  technical  applica- 
tions of  numerical  principles,  or  is  worse  than  wasted  by 
logical  puzzles  unsuited  to  the  child's  age  and  mental 
strength. 

And  this  last  remark  brings  me  to  the  hardest  accusa- 
tion which  is  to  be  brought  against  the  current  teaching 
of  arithmetic.  Well  aware  that  at  this  point  we  have  to 
encounter  an  inveterate  superstition  of  the  New  Eng- 
land mind,  I  have  armed  myself  as  much  as  possible  with 
authority  derived  from  men  of  the  ripest  wisdom  and 
the  largest  learning  in  mental  science.  The  charge  I 
make  against  the  existing  course  of  study  is  that  it  is 
largely  made  up  of  exercises  which  are  not  exercises  in 
arithmetic  at  all,  or  principally,  but  are  exercises  in 
logic  and,  secondly,  that,  as  exercises  in  logic,  these  are 
either  useless  or  mischievous.  The  class  of  exercises 
that  is  here  in  mind  will  be  easily  apprehended.  It  is 
of  those  where  an  example,  or  so-called  practical  prob- 
lem, is  given  in  figures  and  words,  which  are  to  be 
reduced  to  the  form  of  figures  and  algebraic  signs,  and 
thereupon  the  performance  of  the  indicated  numerical 
operations  will  yield  the  required  result.  It  would, 
perhaps,  be  going  too  far  to  say  that  such  examples 
should  in  no  case  be  given;  but  it  may  be  unhesitatingly 
asserted  that  wherever  the  "  statement "  which  is  pre- 
liminary to  the  performance  of  the  purely  arithmetical 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  COMMON  SCHOOLS.        223 

operations  involves  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  time,  and 
thought,  while  the  mere  ciphering  which  follows  is  done 
in  a  minute,  such  exercises,  as  a  matter  of  course,  are  not 
exercises  in  arithmetic,  but  in  logic. 

Secondly,  if  such  exercises,  of  any  considerable  de- 
gree of  difficulty,  are  to  be  set  at  all  for  the  pupils  in 
our  public  schools,  they  should  be  prescribed  as  exer- 
cises in  logic,  or  the  art  of  reasoning;  they  should  be 
taken  from  books  prepared  by  eminent  teachers  of  the 
science  of  mind  who  are  qualified  to  decide  as  to  the  de- 
gree of  difficulty  in  logical  exercises  which  is  suitable 
to  the  child  of  this  or  that  age;  and  the  exercises  so  pre- 
scribed should  be  conducted  by  persons  themselves 
trained  and  qualified  to  teach  the  art  of  reasoning.  To 
smuggle  exercises  of  this  character  into  instruction  given 
in  the  name  of  arithmetic,  is  an  abuse.  By  it  has  been 
created  a  bastard  arithmetic  which  fails  to  perform  the 
true  function  of  that  study  in  our  public  schools — 
namely,  to  produce  accuracy  and  a  reasonable  degree  of 
facility  in  numerical  operations — while  wasting  the  time 
of  the  pupils,^  perplexing  their  minds,  worrying  their 

'  In  scarcely  any  branch  of  study  is  it  possible  to  absolutely  waste 
so  much  time  as  in  arithmetic.  In  history  or  geography,  for  exam- 
ple, the  more  time  the  pupil  spends  over  his  books  the  more,  speak- 
ing generally,  will  he  learn.  What  he  learns  may  be  of  little  value; 
but  he  will  certainly,  in  a  greater  number  of  hours,  acquire  a 
greater  number  of  names,  facts,  and  dates.  In  arithmetic,  however, 
almost  any  amount  of  time  and  nervous  force  may  be  made  a  dead 
loss,  if  the  logical  puzzles  presented  to  the  pupils,  under  the  name  of 
practical  problems,  are  above  the  pupil's  comprehension.  After  the 
child  has  read  over  the  problem  again  and  again,  without  under- 
atanding  it,  without  seeing  the  principle  and  processes  involved,  and 


224  THE  TEACHING  OF  ABITHMETIG. 

tempers,  rasping  their  nerves,  and,  in  case  of  total  or 
partial  failure,  unnecessarily  and  unrighteously  shock- 
ing and  impairing  their  self-respect  and  scholarly 
ambition. 

Does  anyone  consider  this  an  extravagant  denuncia- 
tion of  exercises  of  the  character  indicated?  I  ask,  is 
there  any  father  who  has  had  children  in  the  public 
schools  of  Boston,  where  arithmetic  is  used  as  a  home 
lesson,  who  has  not  seen  those  children  puzzling  and 
worrying  ten,  fifteen,  or  twenty  minutes  over  a  "  prac- 
tical problem,"  the  purely  numerical  work  of  which 
would  not  occupy  as  many  seconds;  and,  after  an  even- 
ing spent  in  this  way,  going  to  bed  hot,  tired,  and  per- 
haps tearful,  and  altogether  unfitted  for  that  sound  and 
healthful  sleep  which  should  close  every  child's  day?  I 
have  myself  had  four  children  in  the  grammar  school* 
of  this  city  or  of  New  Haven,  where  home  lessons  in 
arithmetic  were  allowed.  Each  one  of  these  in  turn  I 
have  seen  tormented  in  this  way;  and  have  myself,  not 
infrequently,  when  stooping  to  aid  them,  that  they 
might  go  to  bed  in  something  like  Christian  season,  been 
not  a  little  perplexed  and  troubled  to  make  the  state- 
ments required.  Doubtless  this  has  been  the  experience 
of  most  parents;  and  doubtless,  too,  this  practice  would 

has  made  one  or  two  hopeless  efforts  towards  Its  sohition,  it  does  him 
no  good  whatever  to  keep  on  worrying  over  it.  The  exercise  ceasea 
to  have  any  educational  value,  and  hecomes  merely  a  means  of 
nervous  exhaustion. — JPh-om  President  Walker's  Reply  to  Supervisor 
Peterson  in  the  Boston  ScJwol  Committee.  Puhlished  in  "  Primary 
Education,"  September,  1887. 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  COMMON  SCHOOLS.         225 

long  since  have  teen  reformed,  but  for  the  inveterate 
superstition  of  the  New  England  mind  that  it  is  well  the 
child  should  be  worried  and  perplexed  in  education,  and 
that  out  of  this  agitation  of  the  nerves  and  this  strain 
upon  the  mental  powers  proceed  health  and  vigor/ 
Such  a  view  is  everywhere  yielding  to  a  better  study  of 
the  laws  of  mind.  Generally,  if  not  universally  speak- 
ing, whatever  in  education  is  hard  is  wrong.  The  true 
mental  gymnastic  for  growing  children  is  through  exer- 
cises easy  and  pleasant  which  lead  insensibly  up  to  ever 

'  A  generation  ago  it  was  the  accepted  theory  of  educators  gener- 
ally, that  instruction,  to  be  most  effective,  should  cross  the  grain  of 
the  youthful  mind;  that  if  disinclination  were  shown  towards  any 
particular  study,  the  teacher  should  catch  at  this  as  his  welcome  clew; 
and  that  the  scholar  should  thereafter  be  practiced  and  drilled,  for 
his  mind's  good,  against  his  indifference,  his  dislike,  and  even  his  re- 
pugnance, until  he  should  learn  to  do  well  and  freely  that  for  which 
he  had  originally  the  strongest  inaptitude.  In  a  word,  indisposi- 
tion towards  any  kind  of  mental  exercise  was  to  be  dealt  with  like  a 
sinful  inclination;  war  was  to  be  made  upon  it  until  it  should  be 
conquered. 

Not  only  a  better  observation  of  life,  but  the  study  of  physiologi- 
cal psychology,  has  led  the  educators  of  to-day  to  a  widely  different 
view  of  the  office  of  instruction.  It  is  now  generally  admitted  that 
it  is  the  first  duty  of  the  teacher  to  ascertain  the  true  bent  of  the 
youthful  mind,  and  that,  so  far  a§  practicable,  instruction  should  be 
made  to  conform  thereto;  that  the  successful  teacher  is  not  the  one 
who  compels  the  scholar  to  do,  at  the  last,  reasonably  well  that 
which  he  was  at  the  first  least  disposed  to  do,  but  the  one  who  brings 
the  scholar  to  do,  in  the  fullest  degree  and  in  the  most  perfect  man- 
ner, that  for  which  he  has  the  greatest  aptitude,  leading  him,  with 
ever  increasing  freedom  and  pleasure  of  work,  in  the  ways  which 
nature  has  pointed  out;  that  in  any  other  system  of  training  there  is 
enormous  and  irreparable  loss  of  nervous  force  and  moral  enthusi- 
asm, with  a  result  certain  to  be  lower  and  less  desirable  than  under 
the  system  which  seeks  to  develop  to  their  highest  efficiency  the  na- 
tive powers  of  the  mind. — From  Annual  Report  as  President  of  the 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology,  1883. 


226 


THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC. 


higher  planes  of  attainment,  as  the  faculties  are  ex- 
panded and  strengthened  according  to  their  own  law  of 
growth,  aided  and  fostered  by  gentle  and  agreeable 
practice. 

It  is  in  my  power  to  present  to  the  committee  the  re- 
sults of  an  experiment  on  a  sufficiently  large  scale  to 
establish  the  truth  of  these  representations  regarding  the 
difficulty  of  many  of  the  sums  and  problems  set  for  the 
pupils  of  our  public  schools.  Fourteen  examples,  taken 
from  the  arithmetic  in  use  in  our  schools,  were  given 
out  to  a  large  number  of  pupils  of  the  three  upper  classes 
in  four  of  our  grammar  schools.  These  examples  were 
not  the  most  difficult  which  could  have  been  taken  for 
the  purpose.  On  the  contrary,  a  number  of  the  examples 
first  selected  were  thrown  out  upon  the  representation  of 
the  masters  that  they  would  be  found  so  difficult  as  to 
produce  a  general  failure.  The  following  represents 
the  percentage  of  successful  answers  in  each  case: 


Example. 
1 
3 
3 
4 
5 


Per  Cent. 

Example 

69 

8 

.   16 

9 

47 

10 

67 

11 

46 

13 

56 

13 

86 

14 

Pkr  Cent. 
53 
65 
88 
49 
51 
70 
39 


But  it  is  not  merely  to  the  degree  of  difficulty  attach- 
ing to  exercises  of  this  character  that  exception  should  be 
taken.  I  desire  to  challenge  peremptorily  the  whole 
policy  of  giving  out  exercises  of  any  appreciable  degree 
of  logical  difficulty  to  children  of  this  age.     Thoroughly 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  COMMON  SCHOOLS.  227 

convinced  that  such  a  practice  involves,  to  repeat  the 
phrase  already  used,  bad  psychology,  bad  physiology, 
and  bad  pedagogics,  I  was  yet  desirous  of  bringing  to 
my  support  the  authority  of  masters  in  mental  science, 
and,  vsdth  this  view,  addressed  conmiunications  to  Pro- 
fessor William  James,  professor  of  psychology  in  Har- 
vard University;  Professor  George  H.  Howison,  pro- 
fessor of  philosophy  in  the  University  of  California ;  Dr. 
G.  Stanley  Hall,  professor  of  pedagogics  in  the  Johns 
Hopkins  University,^  and  Dr.  Noah  Porter,  late  presi- 
dent of  Yale  College,  and  still  professor  of  mental  and 
moral  science  in  that  institution.  The  purport  of  these 
communications  was  to  inquire,  first,  whether  the  faculty 
of  logical  analysis  is  not  one  which,  in  the  case  of  the 
vast  majority  of  children,  normally  develops  at  a  later 
period  than  that  within  our  present  consideration; 
secondly,  whether  if  this  be  so,  there  is  any  pedagogical 
advantage  in  attempting  to  "  pry  up  "  this  faculty  and 
bring  it  prematurely  into  consciousness  and  exercise,  in- 
stead of  devoting  the  time  and  strength  of  young  pupils 
to  the  formation  of  a  habit  of  observation,  to  the  culti- 
vation of  the  powers  of  perception,  to  practice  in  the 
interpretation  of  personally  observed  phenomena,  to  the 
acquisition  of  elementary  information,  and  to  the  devel- 
opment, in  a  reasonable  degree,  of  strength  and  clearness 
in  the  memory.  The  class  of  exercises  to  which  excep- 
tion has  been  taken  were  illustrated  either  by  sufficient 
description  or  by  actual  examples.  To  these  communi- 
'  Now  President  of  Clark  University. — Ed. 


238  THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

cations  the  most  courteous  replies  have  been  received. 
The  essential  parts  are  here  submitted,  without  apology 
for  their  length,  on  account  of  the  great  interest  of  the 
subject  treated,  and  the  high  and  commanding  reputa- 
tion of  the  authors. 

Professor  James  writes:  "  The  elaborate  combinations 
of  arithmetical  data  of  which  you  write  are  certainly 
given  to  children  before  their  brains  are  very  hot  for 
them;  while  I  imagine,  on  the  contrary,  the  mere  opera- 
tions of  arithmetic  are  a  comparatively  congenial  exer- 
cise. It  is,  as  you  say,  in  the  association  of  concretes 
that  the  child's  mind  takes  most  delight.  Working  out 
.  results  by  rule  of  thumb,  learning  to  name  things  when 
they  see  them,  drawing  maps,  learning  languages,  seem 
to  me  the  most  appropriate  activities  for  children  under 
thirteen  to  be  engaged  in.  Anecdotal  history  (without 
political  ideas)  might  be  added.  I  feel  pretty  confident 
that  no  man  will  be  the  worse  analyst  or  reasoner  or 
mathematician  at  twenty  for  lying  fallow  in  these  re- 
spects during  his  entire  childhood." 

Professor  Stanley  Hall  writes:  "  If  I  correctly  under- 
stand your  position,  I  most  emphatically  agree  with  it. 
The  purer  the  mathematics  for  boys  of  from  ten  to 
fourteen  years  of  age,  the  better,  it  seems  to  me.  Many 
of  our  arithmetics  presuppose  algebra  and  geometry; 
t.  e.,  in  the  latter  part  give  examples  that  can  be  done 
easily  by  those  methods,  but  which  require  students  to 
go  through  long  and  tedious  processes  which  algebra  and 
geometry   were  meant  to  short-circuit.     Problems  in 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  COMMON  SCHOOLS.         229 

"brokerage,  surveying  of  land,  arcMtecture,  custom-liouse 
practices,  etc.,  are  taught,  just  as  in  the  old  Hindoo 
mathematics  a  taste  for  poetry,  and  in  mediasval  arith- 
metics moral  and  religious  maxims,  and  even  systems,  as 
well  as  historical  information,  were  inculcated  in  the 
form  of  '  sums.'  Has  modern  business  really  any  more 
place  at  that  stage?  .  .  .  American  teachers  seem  to 
me  to  have  spun  the  simple  and  immediate  relations  and 
properties  of  numbers  over  with  pedantic  difficulties. 
The  four  rules,  fractions,  factoring,  decimals,  propor- 
tion, per  cent.,  and  roots,  is  not  this  all  that  is  essential? 
The  best  European  text-hooks  I  know  do  only  this,  and 
are  in  the  smaller  compass,  for  they  look  only  at  facility 
in  pure  number-relations,  which  is  hindered  by  the 
irrelevant  material  publishers  and  bad  teachers  use  as 
padding." 

Professor  Howison  writes:  "  I  understand  your  ques- 
tion to  bear  simply  on  the  point  whether  I  consider  the 
class  of  arithmetical  exercises,  to  which  you  refer,  and 
in  which  the  work  turns  almost  entirely  on  the  logical 
relations  of  the  numbers  given  in  each  example,  to  be  a 
wholesome  regimen  for  pupils  in  the  common  schools, 
of  ages  from  eleven  to  thirteen  years.  To  this  I  reply, 
first,  that  on  general  principles  such  exercises  in  reason- 
ing upon  the  combinative  relations  of  numbers,  or  num- 
bered objects,  ought  to  play  a  very  subordinate  part  in 
the  elementary  period  of  instruction  of  arithmetic.  But 
nevertheless,  secondly,  as  the  very  life  of  arithmetical 
power  turns  on  ability  to  make  the  logical  synthesis  in- 


330  THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

volved  in  the  latter  kind  of  work  (you  see,  I  do  not 
reckon  them  mere  analyses,  as  is  usually  done),  I  think 
some  exercises  of  this  sort  should  go  along  with  the  other 
simple  and  more  natural  kind,  and  that  they  should  go 
from  the  earliest  practicable  date,  almost  from  the  be- 
ginning. But  the  combinative  reasoning  should  be 
adjusted  in  the  most  careful  and  considerate  manner, 
with  a  reference,  that  is,  to  the  degree  of  difficulty  with 
which  the  mind  of  a  child  is  able  at  each  date  to  cope, 
without  confusion,  and  without  sense  of  shame.  So, 
thirdly,  I  should  say  that  the  question  you  raise  con- 
cerns, mainly,  a  matter  of  more  or  less — a  matter  of  de- 
gree. It  is  not  that  the  class  of  exercises  to  which  you 
refer  are  in  kind  and  of  necessity  wrong,  but  that  the 
complexity  and  difficulty  of  those  actually  given  are  so 
often  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  healthy  capacities  of 
children  at  the  age  involved.  .  .  My  own  experience 
and  opinion  of  many  details  in  the  arithmetics  made  for 
boys  and  girls  of  the  age  to  which  you  refer  are  quite 
like  yours.  And  my  experience  and  my  theories, 
founded  on  my  professional  studies  and  practice,  have 
alike  made  it,  with  me,  a  matter  of  settled  conviction 
that  not  only  in  mathematical,  but  in  all  elementary 
teaching,  though  in  elementary  mathematical  teaching 
pre-eminently,  the  first  thing  is  to  get  the  pupil  perfectly- 
familiar  with,  and  as  nearly  as  possible  infallibly  accu- 
rate, in  fundamental  facts  and  operations.  .  .  I  be- 
lieve our  current  practice  in  this  reference  has  for  some 
years — say  the  last  thirty — been  going  seriously  wrong. 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  COMMON  SCHOOLS.  231 

The  reaction  from  the  exaggerated  rote-work  of  the  pre- 
ceding period  has  driven  us  into  the  error  of  the  opposite 
extreme. 

"  The  attenuated  thread  into  which  grammar-school 
instruction  is  now  '  long  drawn  out '  should  appear  a 
patent  absurdity  to  every  thinking  mind.  Particularly 
is  this  absurdity  manifest  in  the  fact  that  we  spend  eight 
or  nine  years  in  nominally  teaching  arithmetic,  when  we 
ought  to  be  able,  surely,  to  accomplish  all  that  is  essential 
in  three,  or,  at  the  very  utmost,  in  four." 

President  Porter  writes:  "  I  am  entirely  with  you  in 
the  opinion  that  the  questions  which  you  send  me  are 
unfit  for  pupils  of  fourteen  or  fifteen  years,  unless  they 
have  been  subjected  to  a  special  training;  and  that  to 
subject  persons  of  that  age  to  such  a  training  would  ordi- 
narily do  them  more  harm  than  good.  .  .  ISfothing  is 
so  admirable,  in  its  time  and  place,  as  the  pure  mathe- 
matics in  every  form.  When  these  are  properly  taught, 
i.  c,  when  they  have  trained  the  mind  to  sharp  analysis 
and  patient  synthesis,  by  the  use  of  numbers  and  geo- 
metric forms,  they  prepare  the  way  for  the  higher  forms 
of  logical  analysis  and  synthesis,  and,  last  of  all,  for  in- 
vention— the  invention  which  is  presupposed  in  the 
problems  to  which  you  reasonably  object." 

It  is  for  the  reasons  which  have  been  given,  re- 
enforced  by  the  authority  of  the  eminent  teachers  who 
have  been  cited,  that  the  Committee  have  included  in 
their  recommendations  a  rule  which  would  require  that 
all  practical  and  illustrative  problems  should  be  of  a 


288  THE  TEACHING  OF  ABITHMETIG. 

nature  to  interest  and  to  aid  the  pupils  in  their  strictly 
arithmetical  work,  not  to  throw  obstacles  in  their  way  or 
to  increase  the  difficulty  of  that  work;  it  being  expressly 
provided  that  all  problems  where  an  attentive  and  dili- 
gent pupil  of  ordinary  capacity  would  find  any  consider- 
able degree  of  difficulty  in  making  the  "  statement " 
preliminary  to  the  performance  of  the  numerical  opera- 
tions required,  shall  be  deemed  objectionable. 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  BOSTON  SCHOOLS 

1887 


Addbess  bbfobe  the  Grahxab-Schooi.  Section  or 
THE  Massachusetts  Teachers'  Association,  Novem- 
ber 25,  1887.    From  Tlie  Academy,  January,  1888. 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  BOSTON  SCHOOLS. 

Neae  the  close  of  tlie  last  school  year,  the  School 
Board  of  Boston  passed  the  following  orders  concerning 
the  study  of  arithmetic: 

1.  Home  lessons  in  arithmetic  should  be  given  out 
only  in  exceptional  cases. 

2.  The  mensuration  of  the  trapezoid  and  of  the  tra- 
pezium, of  the  prism,  pyramid,  cone,  and  sphere;  com- 
pound interest,  cube  root  and  its  applications;  equation 
of  payments,  exchange,  similar  surfaces,  metric  sys- 
tem, compound  proportion,  and  compound  partnership, 
should  not  be  included  in  the  required  course. 

3.  All  exercises  in  fractions,  commission,  discount, 
and  proportion  should  be  confined  to  small  numbers,  and 
to  simple  subjects  and  processes,  the  main  purpose 
throughout  being  to  secure  thoroughness,  accuracy, 
and  a  reasonable  degree  of  facihty  in  plain,  ordinary 
ciphering. 

4.  In  "  practical  problems,"  and  in  examples  illus- 
trative of  arithmetical  principles,  all  exercises  are  to  be 
avoided  in  which  a  fairly  intelligent  and  attentive  child 
of  the  age  concerned  would  find  any  considerable  diffi- 
culty in  making  the  statement  which  is  preliminary  to 
the  performance  of  the  proper  arithmetical  operations. 

"When  arithmetical  work  is  put  into  the  form  of  prac- 
tical or  illustrative  problems,  it  must  be  for  the  purpose 

886 


236  THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

oi  interesting  and  aiding  the  child  in  the  performance 
of  the  arithmetical  operations,  and  with  a  view  to  their 
common  utility. 

5.  In  oral  arithmetic  no  racing  should  be  permitted; 
but  the  dictation  should  be  of  moderate  rapidity. 

6.  The  average  time  devoted  to  arithmetic  through- 
out the  primary-  and  grammar-school  course  should  be 
three  and  a  half  hours  a  week;  and  in  the  third  primary 
grade,  not  more  than  two  hours,  and  in  the  first  and 
second  primary  grades,  not  more  than  three  and  a  half 
hours  each  per  week. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  the  present  paper  to  state  the  con- 
siderations, as  I  conceive  them,  which  moved  and  guided 
the  School  Board  in  taking  the  action  recited. 

The  inhibition  of  home  lessons  in  arithmetic  stands 
upon  somewhat  different  ground  from  the  other  orders 
of  the  committee.  It  might  fairly  be  asked  why  arith- 
metic should  not  be  put  upon  the  same  level  with  geog- 
raphy or  grammar  or  history  or  physiology,  as  a  possible 
and  proper  matter  for  home  lessons,  if,  indeed,  home 
lessons  are  to  be  assigned  at  all.  In  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion, I  may  say  that  the  committee  which  recommended 
the  rule  recited  were  actuated  by  three  considerations. 

First — The  committee,  having  become  satisfied  that 
there  is  a  tendency  unduly  to  magnify  the  importance 
of  arithmetic  on  the  part  of  many  grammar-school 
teachers,  and  to  allow  that  subject  to  encroach  alike  upon 
the  time  which  should  be  devoted  to  other  subjects  of 
study  and  upon  the  time  which  should  be  given  to  recre- 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  BOSTON  SCHOOLS.  237 

ation,  exercise,  and  rest,  deemed  home  lessons  by  far  the 
most  likely  avenues  for  such  encroachment,  and  there- 
fore prohibited  their  use  in  connection  with  this  branch 
of  study,  save  only  in  cases  clearly  exceptional,  as,  for 
instance,  when  a  pupil  has  for  some  time  been  ab- 
sent from  school  and  has,  consequently,  back  work  to 
make  up. 

At  this  point  it  may  be  not  inappropriate  to  remark 
that  careful  inquiry  of  the  superintendent  and  the  super- 
visors of  schools  failed  to  elicit  the  faintest  evidence  that 
better  results  in  arithmetic  were,  as  a  rule,  attained  in 
schools  where  home  lessons  in  this  branch  were  habitu- 
ally given  out  to  the  pupils  of  one  or  another  or  of  all 
the  three  upper  classes,  than  in  schools  where  no  such 
lessons  were  assigned.  The  reasons  for  such  an  ap- 
parent waste  of  the  time  and  force  expended  upon  home 
lessons  in  arithmetic  will,  I  think,  abundantly  appear  in 
the  further  course  of  this  discussion. 

Secondly — Arithmetic,  as  the  subject  matter  of  home 
lessons,  affords  peculiar  opportunities  for  doing  injustice 
as  between  pupil  and  pupil.  In  some  degree  such  in- 
justice will  be  done  whenever  the  work  of  the  pupil  is 
transferred  from  the  schoolroom,  where  all  have  equal 
advantages  as  to  light  and  air,  quiet,  and  the  individual 
attention  of  the  teacher,  to  their  homes,  where  the  widest 
possible  range  exists  as  to  the  conditions  under  which  the 
work  shall  be  prosecuted.  One  pupil  takes  his  "  sums  " 
to  a  quiet  study-room,  well  lighted  and  warmed;  another 
pupil  takes  his  task  back  to  a  home  where  it  is  to  be  per- 


238  THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

formed  amid  noise  and  squalor,  by  an  inadequate  and 
doubtful  light,  perhaps  with  half-a-dozen  children  in  the 
same  room,  possibly  with  drinking  and  smoking  going 
on.  Such  a  range  of  conditions  would  apply  equally  to 
all  subjects  taken  for  home  lessons,  but  it  would  produce 
a  far  greater  effect  in  the  case  of  arithmetical  tasks,  re- 
quiring a  peculiar  degree  of  abstraction  and  attention, 
than  in  that  of  almost  any  other  subject. 

Of  even  more  importance,  in  this  connection,  is  the 
consideration  that  the  parents  of  some  pupils  are  capable 
of  helping  them  to  the  solution  of  their  problems  and  are 
very  likely  to  do  so  if  the  work  is  seen  to  be  too  difficult, 
while  other  parents  are  entirely  incapable  of  giving  any 
assistance  to  their  children  no  matter  how  heavily  they 
may  be  taxed  by  the  tasks  assigned.  It  goes  without 
saying  that  such  an  inequality  of  conditions  would  pro- 
duce far  less  injustice,  as  between  pupil  and  pupil,  if 
history,  geography,  grammar,  or  physiology  were  the 
subject  matter  of  the  home  lessons. 

Thirdly — The  last  and  most  conclusive  of  the  con- 
siderations against  home  lessons  in  arithmetic  is  that  the 
absence  of  the  master  preverts  any  authoritative  inter- 
position to  put  a  stop  to  the  business  when,  even  accord- 
ing to  the  standards  of  the  most  ardent  advocates  of 
pedagogic  torture,  it  has  already  proceeded  far  enough. 
In  the  old  flogging  days  of  the  army  and  navy,  it  was 
always  required  that  the  surgeon  should  stand  by,  to  feel 
the  pulse  of  the  poor  wretch  under  the  lash,  to  watch  the 
signs  of  approaching  nervous  collapse,  and,  in  his  dis- 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  BOSTON  SCHOOLS.  239 

cretion,  to  forbid  the  punishment  to  proceed  further. 
But  in  the  case  of  our  young  children  to  whom  home 
lessons  in  arithmetic  are  assigned,  no  such  humane  pro- 
vision exists.  Were  the  work  being  done  in  the  open 
schoolroom,  the  severest  master,  when  he  saw  that  the 
child  did  not  understand  the  problem,  could  not  do  the 
work,  and  was  only  becoming  more  excited  and  fatigued 
by  repeated  attempts,  would  interpose  either  to  give 
assistance  or  to  put  a  stop  to  the  exercise.  In  the  case 
of  home  lessons,  however,  an  ambitious  and  sensitive 
child  finds  no  such  relief.  The  work  may  go  on  long 
after  the  child  should  have  been  in  bed,  until  a  state  is 
reached  where  further  persistence  is  not  only  in  the 
highest  degree  injurious  but  has  no  longer  any  possible 
relation  to  success.  The  boy  or  girl,  hot,  tired,  over- 
wrought, quivering  with  distress,  could  no  more  do  "  the 
sum  "  in  such  a  condition,  than  he  or  she  could  "  put 
up "  a  hundred-pound  dumb-bell.  Yet  the  remon- 
strances of  parents  produce  only  fresh  tears,  and  when 
at  last  authority  is  exerted  and  the  child  is  driven  to 
bed,  utterly  unfitted  for  that  sound  and  refreshing  sleep 
which  should  close  every  child's  day,  the  task  is  still  un- 
performed. Over  and  over  and  over  again  have  I  had 
to  send  my  own  children,  in  spite  of  their  tears  and  re- 
monstrances, to  bed,  long  after  the  assigned  tasks  had 
ceased  to  have  any  educational  value  and  had  become  the 
means  of  nervous  exhaustion  and  agitation,  highly 
prejudicial  to  body  and  to  mind;  and  I  have  no  reason  to 
doubt  that  such  has  been  the  experience  of  a  large  pro- 


240  THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

portion  of  the  parents  whose  children  are  habitually 
assigned  home  lessons  in  arithmetic. 

Such  were  the  considerations  which  induced  the  com- 
mittee to  pass  the  first  order  which  has  been  read  in  your 
hearing. 

Regarding  the  remaining  five  orders,  considered  as  a 
body,  it  may  be  said  that  the  committee  in  framing  them 
were  actuated  by  the  belief,  formed  partly  through  their 
individual  experience  and  observation  of  public  school 
instruction,  and  partly  as  a  result  of  an  investigation 
conducted  by  the  committee  in  pursuance  of  an  order  of 
the  School  Board  under  date  of  April  27,  1886,  that 
both  loss  of  time  and  misdirection  of  effort,  with  even 
some  positively  injurious  consequences,  were  involved 
in  the  teaching  of  arithmetic  as  carried  on  in  some  of 
the  Boston  schools.  And  here  let  me  say,  to  prevent 
misapprehension,  that  the  committee  at  no  time  in- 
tended to  reflect  on  the  schools  of  our  own  city  as  com- 
pared with  those  of  neighboring  cities  and  towns.  Per- 
sonally, I  believe  that  the  teaching  of  arithmetic  has 
been  more  humane  and  rational,  of  late  years,  in  the 
schools  of  Boston  than  in  those  of  most  New  England 
towns  and  cities. 

What,  then,  are  the  faults  complained  of? 

First — That  the  amount  of  time  devoted  to  this  study 
is  in  excess  of  what  can  fairly  be  allotted  to  it,  in  the 
face  of  the  demands  of  other  and  equally  important 
branches  of  study. 

Secondly — That    the    study    of    arithmetic    is    very 


ARITHMETIC  IN  TEE  BOSTON  SCHOOLS.  241 

largely  pursued  by  methods,  supposed  to  conduce  to 
general  mental  training,  which,  in  a  great  degree,  sacri- 
fice that  facility  and  accuracy  in  numerical  computa- 
tions so  essential  in  the  after-life  of  the  pupil,  whether 
as  a  student  in  the  higher  schools  or  as  a  bread-winner. 

Thirdly — That,  as  arithmetic  is  taught  in  many — ^per- 
haps in  most — schools,  the  possible  advantages  of  this 
branch  of  study,  even  as  a  means  of  general  mental 
training  and  of  the  development  of  the  reasoning 
powers,  are,  whether  by  fault  of  the  text-book  or  of  the 
individual  teacher  or  of  the  standards  adopted  for  exami- 
nation, largely  sacrificed  through  making  the  exercises 
of  imdue  difficulty  and  complexity,  the  exercises  pre- 
scribed often  reaching  a  degree  of  difficulty  and  com- 
plexity which  not  only  destroys  their  disciplinary  value 
but  becomes  a  means  of  positive  injury. 

The  three  propositions  just  recited,  I  will,  with  your 
indulgence,  take  up  in  consecutive  order. 

First — The  estimation  in  which  arithmetic  is  held, 
alike  by  the  general  public,  by  school  boards  and  com- 
mittees whose  duty  it  is  to  lay  out  and  arrange  the  course 
of  study,  and  by  the  teachers  who,  enjoying  more  or  less 
freedom  of  action,  are  to  carry  the  prescribed  schemes 
of  instruction  into  effect,  is  very  largely  a  traditional 
one.  The  recognition  of  changed  circumstances  and 
conditions,  the  persistent  intrusion  of  new  demands  and 
requirements  arising  out  of  those  changes  in  condition 
and  circumstance,  have,  indeed,  caused  both  the  official 
and  the  popular  estimation  of  arithmetic  to  be  more  or 


242  THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIG. 

less  fully  revised  and  modified.  Yet,  so  strong  is  the 
force  of  tradition,  especially  in  the  school  system,  where 
the  pupils  of  one  generation  become  the  teachers  of  the 
next,  that  we  cannot  too  carefully  inquire  whether  the 
reasons  which  at  one  time  underlay  this  or  that  part  of 
our  scheme  of  instruction  have  not  disappeared. 

The  objects  sought  in  teaching  arithmetic  to  the  chil- 
dren of  our  public  schools  are  two.  First,  foremost, 
and  absolutely  indispensable,  is  the  acquisition  of 
the  ability  to  perform  simple  numerical  operations 
with  reasonable  rapidity  and  with  almost  infallible 
accuracy.  Greatly  as  children  differ  on  the  side  of 
their  minds  concerned  in  these  operations,  there  should 
be  yet  no  difficulty  in  securing  the  above  result 
in  the  case  of  all  but  a  very  few  persons  who  may 
perhaps,  for  school  purposes,  be  regarded  as  hopelessly 
indisposed  toward  numbers.  Probably  every  one  of 
these  last  cases  would  in  time  yield  to  judicious  indi- 
vidual treatment;  but,  as  children  have  to  be  dealt  with 
in  large  classes,  we  must  accept  a  small  proportion  of 
failures,  in  this  respect,  as  inevitable. 

What  is  the  standard  which  should  be  set  up  for 
attainment  in  arithmetic,  having  reference  only  to  the 
practical  value  of  that  attainment  in  after-life?  I  an- 
swer, 1st,  the  ability  to  count  infallibly  objects  occur- 
ring irregularly,  up  to  two  or  three  hundred,  say,  for 
example,  packages  of  tickets  or  checks,  dots  upon  a 
piece  of  paper,  persons  in  a  small  audience  room,  etc.; 
2d,  the  ability  to  add,  without  the  possibility  of  a  mis- 


ABITHMETIG  IN  THE  BOSTON  SCHOOLS.  243 

take,  columns  of  figures  such  as  would  occur  in  an  ordi- 
nary savings-bank  deposit-book  or  housekeeper's  pass- 
book; 3d,  the  ability  to  add  two  numbers,  each  below 
one  hundred,  or  to  subtract  the  less  from  the  greater, 
rapidly  and  without  recourse  to  pen  or  pencil;  4th,  the 
ability  to  multiply,  on  the  slate  or  blackboard,  one  num- 
ber of  moderate  length  by  a  small  multiplier,  or  to 
divide  it  by  a  small  divisor;  5th,  the  ability  to  compute 
simple  interest,  on  moderate  sums,  at  even  rates  per 
cent.,  for  round  periods;  6th,  the  ability  to  work  simple 
examples  in  "  Reduction,"  involving  the  use  of  the 
American  tables  of  weights,  measures,  and  moneys. 

If  every  boy  and  girl,  on  leaving  the  grammar  school, 
at  fourteen  or  fifteen,  had  reached  this  stage  of  attain- 
ment, the  public  schools  would  have  fairly  done  their 
duty  by  them,  so  far  as  the  practical  uses  of  arithmetic 
are  concerned.  This  is  all  I  would  ask  for  my  own  son 
or  daughter.  This  is  as  much  as  nineteen  boys  out  of 
twenty,  ninety-nine  girls  out  of  a  hundred,  who  do  not 
go  beyond  the  grammar  schools  have  occasion  to  put 
frequently  to  use  in  the  work  of  their  lives.  If  the 
twentieth  boy  is  to  be  a  clerk  or  accountant  or  to  take  up 
business  for  himself,  he  will,  very  readily,  from  this 
basis,  acquire  the  needed  facility  in  casting  up  the 
columns  of  a  ledger,  or  in  working  heavier. sums  in  mul- 
tiplication or  division. 

This  is  the  first  object  to  be  sought  through  the  study 
of  arithmetic;  and  its  importance  has  neither  increased 
nor  diminished  since  the  days  of  our  fathers. 


344  THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

The  second  object  which  is  properly  sought  by  means 
of  the  studies  and  exercises  in  question  is  general  mental 
training. 

The  importance  of  this  function  of  arithmetic  has 
greatly  declined  during  the  present  generation  by  rea- 
son of  the  introduction  of  new  studies  and  exercises, 
some  of  which  are  equally  well  adapted,  if,  indeed,  not 
better  adapted,  to  perform  the  required  work.  Thirty 
and  forty  years  ago,  the  studies  in  our  public  schools 
were  few  and  simple.  Reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic, 
a  little  grammar,  some  crude  declamation,  with  political 
geography,  made  up,  substantially,  the  course  of  study. 
Of  the  physical  geography  of  to-day,  extending  even  to 
what  were  once  the  mysteries  of  meteorology,  taking 
ii^to  account  the  influence  of  currents  of  air  and  water 
upon  climate,  and  of  climate  upon  the  productions  of 
the  soil  and  upon  the  occupations  of  man,  there  was  then 
not  a  trace.  History  and  civil  government  were  un- 
known studies  in  the  grammar  schools  of  those  days. 
Physiology  was  just  about  to  enter  the  schools,  in  spite 
of  the  protest  of  an  eminent  citizen  of  Massachusetts 
upon  the  ground  that  it  was  one  of  a  group  of  sciences 
none  of  which  should  be  brought  into  the  schools  unless 
all  were  to  be.  Music  and  drawing  were  to  wait  still 
longer  for  recognition  by  school  authorities.  The 
elementary  mechanics  and  physics,  so  successfully 
taught  in  many  schools,  were  then  not  dreamed  of  as 
possible  subjects  of  study.  A  district  schoolmaster  of 
the  past  generation  would  as  soon  have  thought  of  teach- 


ARITHMETIC  IN  TEE  BOSTON  SCHOOLS.  245 

ing  the  language  of  Archimedes  as  of  explaining  the 
principle  of  the  lever  and  fulcrum. 

The  introduction  of  many  new  subjects  of  study  has 
greatly  reduced  the  importance  of  arithmetic  as  a  means 
of  general  training.  In  the  generation  just  passed,  it 
was  necessarily  looked  to  for  very  much  of  the  develop- 
ment and  discipline  of  the  pupil.  To-day  a  half  score  of 
separate  sciences  or  important  subjects  of  study  offer 
themselves  to  do  the  same  work,  in  one  or  more  of  which 
are  unmistakably  found  all  the  educational  virtues  which 
belong  to  arithmetic,  together  with  others  which  arith- 
metic does  not  possess.  The  strongest  claim  made  in  be- 
half of  mathematical  study  has  been  its  cultivation  of 
the  power  of  continuous  attention;  yet  the  degree  of 
attention  which  can  be  commanded,  on  the  part  of  chil- 
dren dragged  reluctantly  through  compound  fractions 
or  cube  root,  is  far  inferior  to  that  given  by  a  group  of 
eager  boys  and  girls  following  an  enlightened  teacher  in 
some  branch  of  natural  history.  Generally  speaking, 
it  may  be  said  of  the  new  subjects,  that,  while  they  train 
the  powers  of  reasoning  not  less  efficiently  than  does 
arithmetic,  they  also  bring  into  play  the  powers  of  per- 
ception and  observation  which  in  all  branches  of  mathe- 
matics are  left  absolutely  unused. 

I  would  not  wish  to  be  understood  to  assert  that  arith- 
metic has  ceased  to  have  any  educational  value  at  all, 
beyond  its  practical  utility,  in  the  public  school  of  to-day. 
I  entertain  no  doubt  that,  in  the  primary  school  and 
even  the  lower  classes  of  the  grammar  school,  number- 


246  THE  TEACmNQ  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

lessons,  in  application  to  concrete  objects,  may  be  help- 
ful in  awakening  interest,  arousing  thought,  and  bring- 
ing the  mind  into  healthful  exercise;  but  I  do  seriously 
question  whether  for  every  hour  spent  by  a  boy  of  thir- 
teen or  fourteen  years  of  age  in  the  study  of  arithmetic, 
beyond  what  is  necessary  to  secure  the  degree  of  accu- 
racy and  facility  indicated  at  an  earlier  stage  of  the 
discussion,  an  hour  spent  in  some  other  kind  of  study 
might  not  be  substituted  to  his  very  great  advantage. 
However  this  may  be,  it  seems  to  me  clear  that  arith- 
metic, by  virtue  of  having  been  earlier  on  the  ground 
and  of  enjoying  the  prestige  and  authority  derived  from 
the  past,  continues  to-day  to  occupy  space  which  is 
urgently  needed  for  the  proper  extension  of  some  of  the 
new  subjects  that,  in  spite  of  the  recognition  of  their 
practical  utility  and  educational  value,  have  scarcely 
been  able  to  secure  a  foothold  in  fact,  although  forming 
a  feature  of  the  grammar-school  curriculum  on  paper. 

The  second  of  the  main  propositions  laid  down  was 
that  the  study  of  arithmetic  is  very  largely  pursued  by 
methods  supposed  to  conduce  to  general  mental  training 
which,  in  a  great  degree,  sacrifice  that  facility  and  accu- 
racy in  numerical  computations,  so  essential  in  the  after- 
life of  the  pupil,  whether  as  a  student  in  the  higher 
schools  or  as  a  bread-winner. 

That  the  results  of  the  study  of  arithmetic  in  the 
grammar  schools  are  unsatisfactory,  so  far  as  the  ability 
of  the  pupils  to  perform  numerical  work  correctly  and 
with  reasonable  dispatch  is  concerned,  whether  in  subs©- 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  BOSTON  SCHOOLS.  247 

quent  studies  or  in  actual  business  operations,  seems  to  me 
established  by  abundant  testimony,  both  of  merchants, 
manufacturers,  and  bankers,  receiving  graduates  from 
our  grammar  schools,  and  of  teachers  in  higher  institu- 
tions of  learning.  The  average  pupil  falls  short  of  the 
very  moderate  degree  of  attainment  which  I  indicated  as 
fairly  to  be  expected  from  all  but  a  very  few  highly  ex- 
ceptional scholars,  and  that  too  with  very  much  less  than 
the  amount  of  time  actually  devoted  to  arithmetic.  The 
head  masters  of  both  of  the  great  high  schools  of  Boston 
have  assured  me  that  they  find  grave  deficiencies  on  the 
part  of  large  numbers  of  pupils  coming  from  the  gram- 
mar schools,  in  this  matter  of  accuracy  in  simple  nu- 
merical operations;  and  I  have  received  similar  informa- 
tion from  the  head  masters  of  high  schools  in  other  cities. 
In  the  institution  with  which  I  am  personally  connected, 
instructors  in  algebra,  for  example,  find  that  many 
pupils  who  are  familiar  with  difiicult  theorems  and  are 
masters  of  complicated  formulae,  often  vitiate  their  work 
by  simple  numerical  mistakes,  such  as  would  have  been 
impossible  had  they  been  properly  trained  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  their  mathematical  education.  Professor 
Safford,  the  eminent  mathematician  and  astronomer  of 
Williams  College,  in  a  recent  treatise  states  that  he  finds 
in  his  own  pupils  a  great  want  of  skill  in  ordinary  calcu- 
lations and  that  inaccuracy  in  simple  arithmetical  work 
is  very  common.  In  a  letter  which  I  have  to-day  re- 
ceived, Professor  John  E.  Clark,  the  head  of  the  mathe- 
matical department  of  the  Shefiield  Scientific  School  of 


248  TEE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

Yale  College,  states  very  strongly  the  deficiencies  of 
students  entering  that  school,  in  the  matter  of  simple 
numerical  accuracy  and  facility. 

Embarrassing  as  are  such  deficiencies  in  the  case  of 
students  pursuing  long  courses  of  study,  the  results  in 
the  case  of  those  students  who  leave  the  grammar  school 
to  begin  to  earn  their  own  living  are  in  a  high  degree 
disastrous.  To  repeat  here  language  which  I  have  used 
elsewhere:  employers  have  literally  no  use  for  boys  who 
make  mistakes  in  numbers.  Such  a  failing  offsets  the 
best  training,  otherwise,  of  mind  and  hand.  In  a  store 
or  shop  or  factory,  or  on  a  railroad,  a  lad  who  cannot  set 
down  figures,  and  add  them  right,  every  time,  must 
take  and  keep  an  inferior  position.  It  is  difficult  to 
imagine  a  greater  wrong,  short  of  a  permanent  injury  to 
health,  that  can  be  done  to  a  child  than  to  send  him  out 
into  the  world  to  earn  his  living  without  the  ability  to 
conduct  numerical  operations  accurately. 

The  defect  which  has  been  thus  severely  commented 
on  is  not  due  to  a  lack  of  time  devoted  to  exercises  under 
the  name  of  arithmetic,  but  to  the  fact  that  so  little 
proper  numerical  work  is  involved  in  these  exercises. 
Scarcely  has  the  pupil  learned  the  four  simple  rules  be- 
fore he  is  given  numerous  technical  applications  requir- 
ing the  use  of  extended  tables  of  weights,  measures  and 
moneys,  and  so-called  practical  or  illustrative  problems 
which  necessitate  deep  and  long  puzzling  over  the  rela- 
tions and  terms  involved.  Even  in  the  early  stages  of 
this  process,  seldom  is  so  much  as  one-half  of  the  time 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  BOSTON  SCHOOLS.  249 

given  to  proper  numerical  work.  Often  that  proportion 
sinks  to  a  third,  or  a  quarter,  or  even  to  a  smaller  share. 
Sometimes  the  amount  of  such  work  becomes  inconsider- 
able. Who  of  us  has  not  seen  a  bright  lad  spend  ten  or 
fifteen  minutes  over  a  practical  problem,  when  the  mere 
addition,  multiplication,  subtraction,  and  division  in- 
volved would  not  have  occupied  as  many  seconds? 

It  was  partly  to  increase  the  amount  of  actual  nu- 
merical work  to  be  done  in  an  hour  devoted  to  so-called 
arithmetic;  in  part,  also,  to  reduce  the  load  which  our 
children  are  required  to  carry  all  the  time  on  their 
minds,  ready  to  be  at  any  instant  unpacked  and  put  to 
use,  that  the  School  Board  of  Boston  have  thrown  over- 
board the  large  and  miscellaneous  "  lot "  of  subjects 
mentioned  in  their  second  order.  It  was  with  reference 
in  part  to  the  consideration  just  indicated,  and,  in  part, 
to  that  consideration  which  remains  now  to  be 
stated,  that  they  passed  the  orders  numbered  three  and 
four. 

The  third  and  last  of  the  main  considerations  which 
actuated  the  School  Board,  dealing  with  this  subject,  has 
been  stated  as  follows:  That,  as  arithmetic  is  now  taught 
in  many,  perhaps  in  most,  schools,  the  possible  advan- 
tages of  this  branch  of  study  as  a  means  of  general 
mental  training,  are,  whether  by  fault  of  the  text-book 
or  of  the  individual  teacher  or  of  the  standards  adopted 
for  examination,  largely  sacrifice,  through  making  the 
exercises  of  undue  dijfficulty  and  complexity,  the  exer- 
cises prescribed  often  reaching  a  degree  of  difficulty  and 


260  THE  TEACHING  OF  ABITHMETIG. 

complexity  which  not  only  completely  destroys  their  dia- 
ciplinary  value,  but  becomes  a  means  of  positive  injury. 

It  was  in  the  belief  just  stated  that  the  Board  pre- 
scribed that  all  exercises  in  fractions,  discount,  commis- 
sion, and  proportion  should  be  confined  to  small  numbers 
and  to  simple  subjects  and  processes;  and,  again,  that  in 
so-called  practical  and  illustrative  problems,  all  exer- 
cises in  which  a  fairly  intelligent  and  attentive  child  of 
the  age  concerned  would  find  any  considerable  difficulty 
in  making  the  "  statement "  which  is  preliminary  to  the 
performance  of  the  proper  arithmetical  operation,  shall 
be  deemed  objectionable. 

This  action  of  the  school  committee  was  at  the  time 
opposed,  and  is  still  by  some  criticised,  on  two  different 
grounds.  One,  that  the  exercises  given  to  the  children 
in  the  Boston  schools,  whether  as  examples  under  the 
rules  mentioned  or  as  practical  and  illustrative  problems, 
have,  in  fact,  uniformly  been  simple  and  easy;  the  other, 
that,  in  sound  educational  theory,  the  exercises  given  to 
young  pupils  ought  to  be  difficult,  complicated,  perplex- 
V  ing,  and  distressing,  in  order  that  the  child's  mind  and 
spirit  may  undergo  a  due  preparation  for  the  difficult 
duties  and  hard  problems  of  life,  one  enthusiastic  writer 
of  this  school  going  so  far  as  to  declare  that  it  is  essential 
to  good  education  that  the  sums  set  for  the  pupil  should 
be  not  only  often  difficult  but  sometimes  actually  impos- 
sible of  solution  by  him,  in  his  then  stage  of  mental  de- 
velopment. 

To  the  assertion,  so  constantly  made,  as  to  the  simple 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  BOSTON  SCHOOLS.  251 

and  easy  character  of  the  exercises  prescribed  for  our 
children,  it  may  be  replied  that,  if  the  facts  are  as  stated, 
the  rules  imposed  can  do  no  harm;  but  that  the  personal 
testimony  of  members  of  the  Board  abundantly 
establishes  the  fact  that  absurdly  complicated  exercises 
in  fractions,  cube  root,  etc.,  and  practical  problems 
amounting  to  the  severest  logical  puzzles,  were  given 
out,  in  some  of  the  schools  of  Boston,  down  to  the  very 
date  of  the  order  recited. 

As  to  the  educational  theory  which  was  brought  to 
bear,  both  in  debate  and  in  outside  criticism,  against  the 
proposed  rules,  I  may  say  it  is  pleasure  to  encounter 
error  with  so  little  of  disguise.  If  its  advocates  are  in 
the  right,  the  action  which  the  school  committee  have 
taken  is,  of  course,  all  wrong;  but  I,  for  one,  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  assert  that  this  theory,  in  its  milder  form,  is  in- 
consistent with  the  best  and  ripest  results  of  modem 
physiology  and  psychology;  while  I  denounce  that 
theory  in  its  extreme  shape  as  a  relic  of  barbarism, 
closely  akin  to  some  of  the  most  savage  superstitions  of 
primitive  mankind.  The  notion  that  exercises,  either 
mental  or  physical,  prescribed  for  young  children, 
should  be  often  up  to  the  full  limit  of  their  powers  and 
should  at  times  exceed  those  powers  is  distinctly  false. 
The  true  gymnastic  for  the  growing  child  is  through 
exercises  easy  and  pleasant,  which  lead  insensibly  up  to 
ever  higher  planes  of  attainment,  as  the  faculties  are 
expanded  and  strengthened,  according  to  their  own  law 
of   growth,    through    gentle    and    agreeable    exercise. 


252  THE  TEACHING  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

Wherever  fatigue,  confusion,  and  the  sense  of  strain  be- 
gin, there  the  virtue  of  the  exercise  ceases,  whether  for 
promoting  the  growth  of  the  powers  or  for  the  training 
and  disciplining  of  the  powers  as  they  exist.  Loss  and 
waste — it  may  be  much,  it  may  be  little — begin  at  this 
point,  and  go  forward,  from  this  point,  at  a  constantly 
accelerating  ratio. 
[^  In  college,  thirty  years  ago,  those  of  us  who  were 
given  to  athleticism  were  accustomed  to  use  heavy 
dumb-bells,  the  heavier,  we  thought,  the  better. 
Twenty-four  and  thirty-two  pounders,  the  famous 
"  fifty-sixes,"  and  even  eighty-pound  bells  were  much  in 
favor  with  young  fellows  who  desired  to  become  strong. 
To-day,  a  prize  fighter  preparing  to  contest  the  cham- 
pionship of  the  world  uses,  habitually,  very  light  dumb- 
bells, just  heavy  enough  to  give  a  purpose  to  his  blow 
and  to  be  distinctly  felt  at  the  end  of  the  stroke.  He 
makes,  with  the  light  bell,  ten  strokes  to  one  he  would 
make  with  the  heavy  bell,  and  gets  twice  as  much  good 
from  the  exercise.  If  this  be  the  part  of  wisdom  for 
the  grown  giant,  overflowing  with  the  exuberance  of  his 
strength,  much  more  is  such  a  course  desirable  in  the 
case  of  young,  tender  children,  yet  in  the  gristle,  the 
frame  and  brain  still  plastic  and  yielding,  with  the  possi- 
bilities of  manhood  and  womanhood  but  dimly  inti- 
mated. Whether  for  the  promotion  of  future  growth, 
or  for  the  training  of  the  powers  as  they  are,  or  for  the 
acquisition  of  the  inestimable  art  of  rapid  and  accurate 
computation,  school  exercises  in  arithmetic  should,  in 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  BOSTON  SCHOOLS.  253 

the  opinion  of  the  Boston  Board,  be  easy  and  simple, 
with  the  resulting  advantage  of  becoming  more  fre- 
quent than  is  possible,  within  any  reasonable  limits  of 
time,  in  the  case  of  the  highly  complicated  and  difficult 
sums  and  problems  with  which  the  traditional  gymnastic 
deals. 

The  greatest  enemy,  however,  to  true  arithmetical 
work  is  found  in  so-called  practical  or  illustrative  prob- 
lems, which  are  freely  given  to  our  pupils,  of  a  degree 
of  difficulty  and  complexity  altogether  unsuited  to  their 
age  and  mental  development.  It  is  bad  enough  to  give 
boys  and  girls  of  twelve  and  fourteen  years  of  age  nu- 
merical operations  far  exceeding  in  difficulty  those  which 
any  bank  cashier  has  to  perform  from  one  year's  end  to 
another;  to  require  them  to  extract  the  cube  root  of 
three-sevenths;  to  pile  one  irregular  and  jagged  fraction 
on  top  of  another  and  then  ask  them  to  divide  or  mul- 
tiply this  by  an  arithmetical  monstrosity  as  hideous  and 
impossible  as  itself.  But,  at  least,  a  pupil  so  engaged 
is  actually  dealing  all  the  time  with  numbers.  It  is 
through  so-called  practical  and  illustrative  problems 
that  bad  teaching  in  arithmetic  does  its  worst.  The  loss 
of  time  may  be  no  greater;  but  the  resulting  confusion 
and  sense  of  strain  are  apt  to  be  more  bewildering  and 
distracting  to  children  of  the  ages  concerned.  Every- 
teacher  and  every  parent  whose  children  have  been  given 
lessons  in  home  arithmetic,  know  too  well  the  kind  of 
problems  to  which  allusion  is  made.  I  am,  myself,  no  r 
bad  mathematician,  and  all  the  reasoning  powers  with 


264  THE  TEACHINO  OF  ARITHMETIC. 

which  nature  endowed  me  have  long  been  as  fully  de- 
veloped as  they  are  ever  likely  to  be;  but  I  have,  not 
infrequently,  been  puzzled,  and  at  times  foiled,  by  the 
subtle  logical  difficulty  running  through  one  of  these 
problems,  given  to  my  own  children.  The  head-master 
of  one  of  our  Boston  high  schools  confessed  to  me  that 
he  had  sometimes  been  unable  to  unravel  one  of  these 
tangled  skeins,  in  trying  to  help  his  own  daughter 
through  her  evening's  work.  During  this  summer,  Dr. 
Fairbaim,  the  distinguished  head  of  one  of  the  colleges 
of  Oxford,  England,  told  me  that  not  only  had  he  him- 
self encountered  a  similar  difficulty,  in  the  case  of  his 
own  children,  but  that,  on  one  occasion,  having  as  his 
guest  one  of  the  first  mathematicians  of  England,  the 
two  together  had  been  completely  puzzled  by  one  of 
these  arithmetical  conundrums. 

The  vice  of  such  problems  is  of  a  double  nature. 
First,  there  is  the  fact  of  undue  complexity  and  diffi- 
culty. Secondly,  there  is  the  fact  that  the  special 
faculty  concerned  does  not  normally  develop  in  the 
child's  mind  until  a  later  period  of  life  than  that  gener- 
ally concerned  in  these  operations.  In  this  connection 
I  refer  to  the  letters  from  President  Porter  and  Profes- 
sors Howison,  James,  and  Stanley  Hall,^  which  were 
made  a  part  of  my  address  to  the  Boston  school  board 
on  the  12th  of  April  last.  For  one,  I  believe  it  to  be 
altogether  undesirable  to  attempt  to  pry  this  faculty  up 
from  the  mass  of  mind,  in  which,  by  nature's  wise  pro- 
>  See  p.  227,  ante.— Ed. 


ARITHMETIC  IN  THE  BOSTON  SCHOOLS.  255 

vision,  it  still  lies  embedded  and  dormant,  and  to  bring 
it  prematurely  into  consciousness  and  exercise. 

Whether  one  agrees  with  the  reasons  which  have  been 
presented,  or  not,  such  is  the  law  of  the  schools  of  Bos- 
ton to-day,  under  adequate  authority;  and  those  teachers 
who  still  believe  that  children  should  be  harassed  and 
distressed  in  education,  for  their  souls'  and  minds'  good; 
that  the  exercises  of  the  growing  boy  or  girl  should  be 
carried  to  the  point  of  strain;  and  that  sometimes  the 
pupil  should  even  be  set  examples  he  cannot  perform, 
will  perforce  have  to  resort  to  some  instrument  of  torture 
other  than  arithmetic. 


COLLEGE  PROBLEMS 


COLLEGE  ATHLETICS 

1893 


Address  before  the  P^i  Beta  Kappa  Society, 
Alpha  of  Massachusetts,  at  Casibridgk,  Juke  29,  1893. 
From  the  Technology  Quarterly,  July,  1893 :  and  the 
Harvard  Oraduatet'  Magazine,  September,  1893. 


COLLEGE  ATHLETICS. 

I  TEUST  it  will  not  be  deemed  beneath  the  dignity  of 
this  occasion  that  I  should  ask  your  attention  to  a  few 
thoughts  regarding  college  athletics.  No  theme  is  to- 
day of  greater  consequence  to  the  colleges  and  universi- 
ties of  our  land,  whether  as  influencing  school  discipline 
or  as  affecting  the  standard  of  scholarship.  Alike  those 
who  applaud  and  those  who  deprecate  the  growth  of 
athletics  must  admit  the  importance  of  the  subject. 

The  past  ten  years  have  witnessed  a  remarkable  devel- 
opment in  the  direction  indicated,  which  we  may  well 
pause  to  consider.  The  rising  passion  for  athletics  has 
carried  all  before  it.  Thus  far,  at  least,  there  is  no  sign 
of  reaction  or  even  of  the  exhaustion  of  the  forward 
impulse.  Honors  in  football,  in  baseball,  and  in  rowing 
have  come  to  be  esteemed  of  equal  value  with  honors  in 
the  classics,  in  philosophy,  or  in  mathematics;  and  if  the 
movement  shall  continue  at  the  same  rate  it  will  soon  be 
fairly  a  question  whether  the  letters  A.  B.  in  the  college 
degree  stand  for  bachelor  of  arts  more  than  for  bachelor 
of  athletics. 

Among  instructors  and  the  governing  bodies  of  our 
colleges  there  is  a  wide  difference  of  sentiment  on  the 
subject.  Some  applaud,  some  doubt,  some  disapprove; 
others  are  simply  dazed  and  know  not  what  to  think,  or 
suspend  all  judgment  waiting  to  see  how  much  farther 

859 


260  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS.  ' 

the  rising  tide  will  encroach  upon  the  shore.  In  the 
larger  community  there  is,  perhaps,  an  even  more  pro- 
nounced divergence  of  opinion.  Few  college  presidents 
or  professors  but  see  some  good  in  the  new  movement 
and  sympathize  largely  with  the  enthusiasm  of  their 
pupils.  But  there  is  a  host  of  editors,  preachers,  and 
men  of  affairs  in  the  outside  world,  and  a  host  of  parents 
and  guardians  more  directly  concerned,  who  are  sure 
that  it  is  all  of  evil;  that  the  colleges  are  simply  going 
wild  over  athletic  sports,  preparing  the  way  for  the 
downfall  of  the  traditional  system  of  education.  To 
many  of  these  it  is  a  monstrous  thing  that  large  bodies 
of  young  men  should  give  themselves  up  to  contests  of 
skill  and  strength,  and  that  larger  bodies  still  should  find 
in  these  contests  the  chief  interest  of  their  college  life. 

Fairly  to  approach  the  subject  we  need  to  consider 
the  state  of  things  which  existed  prior  to  the  War  of 
Secession;  in  other  words,  to  go  back  just  one  human 
generation,  as  a  human  generation  is  usually  computed. 
In  those  days  gymnastics  held  but  a  small,  a  very  small, 
place  in  American  colleges;  while  throughout  the  wider 
community  there  was  almost  no  athleticism.  The  two 
most  important  exceptions  to  the  latter  statement  were 
found  in  the  occasional  outlawed  and  always  disreputa- 
ble prize  fight,  generally  with  some  international  com- 
plication, genuine  or  manufactured,  for  the  sake  of 
stimulating  public  interest,  and  in  a  small  amount  of 
rather  poor,  unscientific  boat-racing.  Almost  no  honor 
was  then  given  to  a  young  man  because  he  was  strong, 


COLLEGE  ATHLETICS.  261 

swift,  courageous,  or  enduring.  The  college  hero  of 
those  days  was  apt  to  be  a  young  man  of  towering  fore- 
head, from  which  the  hair  was  carefully  brushed  back- 
wards and  upwards  to  give  the  full  effect  to  his  remark- 
able phrenological  developments.  His  cheeks  were 
pale,  his  digestion  pretty  certain  to  be  bad.  He  was 
self-conscious,  introspective,  and  indulged  in  moods  as 
became  a  child  of  genius.  He  had  yearnings  and  aspi- 
rations, and  not  infrequently  mistook  physical  lassitude 
for  intellectuality,  and  the  gnawings  of  dyspepsia  for 
spiritual  cravings.  He  would  have  gravely  distrusted 
his  mission  and  his  calling  had  he  found  himself  at  any 
time  playing  ball.  He  went  through  moral  crises  and 
mental  fermentations  which  seemed  to  him  tremendous. 
From  the  gloomy  recesses  of  his  ill-kept  and  unventi- 
lated  room  he  periodically  came  forth  to  astound  his 
fellow  students  with  poor  imitations  of  Coleridge,  De 
Quincey,  and  Carlyle,  or  of  Goethe  in  translation. 

Not  all  college  heroes  of  those  days  were  of  this 
familiar  type.  Sometimes  they  were  thunderous  orators, 
more  Websterian  than  Webster,  who  could  by  a  single 
effort  lift  themselves  to  the  full  height  of  perorations 
which  in  the  senate  or  the  forum  are  the  culmination  of 
great  arguments  and  of  many  a  passionate  appeal. 
Sometimes,  though  more  rarely,  the  college  hero  was  a 
delightfully  wicked  fellow,  who  did,  or  at  least  affected 
to  do,  naughty  things,  wrote  satirical  verses,  was  sup- 
posed to  know  life,  and  in  various  ways  exerted  a  bale- 
ful fascination  over  his  fellow  students.     But,  however 


262  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

tlie  type  of  the  college  hero  might  vary,  speech-making, 
debating,  or  fine  writing  were  the  be-all  and  the  end-all 
of  college  training,  as  in  the  world  outside  the  college 
speech-making,  debating,  or  fine  writing  were  the  sole 
recognized  signs  and  proofs  of  greatness.  Physical 
force,  dexterity,  and  endurance,  capacity  for  action, 
nerve,  and  will-power  went  for  little  or  nothing,  so  far 
as  public  admiration  was  concerned.  Statesmanship 
itself  was  perverted  by  eagerness  to  seek  occasions  for 
oratorical  display.  Men  of  business,  men  of  affairs,  men 
of  prudence,  moderation,  and  real  ability  were  crowded 
out  of  our  legislative  halls  by  shrill-voiced  declaimers 
who  could  catch  the  ear  of  a  nation  given  over  to  the 
lust  of  words.  "  Sir,"  once  said  Daniel  Webster,  bend- 
ing those  tremendous  brows  upon  a  young  man  after- 
wards renowned  among  the  great  attorney  generals  of 
the  United  States,  "  sir,  the  curse  of  this  country  has 
been  its  eloquent  men." 

What  was  the  reason  for  this  state  of  things  regarding 
the  college  ideals  of  a  generation  ago,  so  strongly  con- 
trasted with  what  we  see  to-day?  In  part,  bad  physi- 
ology, or  the  absence  of  anything  that  could  be  called 
physiology,  was  responsible  for  it;  but  in  greater  part 
it  was  due,  I  believe,  to  the  transcendentalism  and  senti- 
mentalism  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  and  the 
first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  which  had 
created  false  and  pernicious  opinions  concerning  per- 
sonal character  and  conduct.  There  was  more  than  in- 
difference, there  was  contempt  for  physical  prowess.     A 


COLLEGE  ATHLETICS.  263 

man  who  was  known  to  be  specially  gifted  in  this  way 
was  thereby  disparaged  in  public  estimation.  If  he 
were  known  to  make  much  of  it,  he  was  likely  to  be 
despised.  It  was  taken  for  granted  that  he  could  not 
be  good  for  anything  else.  Brains  and  brawn  were  sup- 
posed to  be  developed  in  inverse  ratio.  Affected  notions 
about  intellectuality  and  spirituality  had  almost  com- 
plete control  of  the  popular  thought.  The  only  things 
to  be  admired  were  mind  and  soul.  "  Mere  bigness  " 
was  a  favorite  phrase  of  contempt.  Strength  was  be- 
lieved to  be  closely  akin  to  brutality.  Danger,  positive 
danger,  to  spirituality,  if  not  also  to  morality,  lay  in 
physical  force  and  exuberant  vitality.  The  same  no- 
tions perverted  the  ideals  of  womanly  grace  and  beauty. 
Robust  vigor,  a  hearty  appetite,  and  a  ruddy  complexion 
would  have  been  deemed  incompatible  with  the  func- 
tion of  the  heroine  of  a  popular  novel  or  a  sentimental 
poem,  or  even  with  the  part  of  a  belle  in  society.  Lan- 
guor and  pallor  were  attractive,  delicacy  of  frame  and 
limb  was  admired. 

The  notions  referred  to  were  doubtless  closely  con- 
nected with  the  political  ideas  of  those  days.  It  was  an 
era  of  transcendentalism  in  politics.  Political  mechan- 
ism was  disparaged.  The  philosophy  of  the  age 
declared  that  a  virtuous  people  would  of  themselves 
make  a  good  government.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was 
impossible  so  to  organize  the  public  force  as  to  give  a 
people  a  government  that  should  be  better  than  them- 
selves.    The  maxim,  "  A  stream  cannot  rise  higher  than 


264  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

its  source,"  was  a  conclusive  answer  to  all  pleas  for  the 
scientific  treatment  of  political  problems.  There  was 
an  affectation  of  indifference  towards  size  and  numbers 
in  national  life.  Quality,  not  quantity,  was  in  the  eyes 
of  the  men  of  those  days  the  sole  test  of  the  worthiness 
and  the  greatness  of  a  people.  Mass  went  for  nothing. 
"  Mere  bigness  "  was  here,  as  in  the  case  of  the  indi- 
vidual, a  term  of  infinite  contempt.  I  never  shall  forget 
the  rebuke,  not  unkindly  meant  or  harshly  spoken,  which 
I  received  from  a  distinguished  leader  of  public  thought 
for  boasting  in  a  boyish  vein  about  the  extent  of  my 
country  and  the  greatness  of  its  resources. 

The  indifference  toward,  or  the  dislike  of,  athletics  a 
generation  or  two  ago  was  also  largely  due  to  the  reli- 
gious ideas  and  feelings  of  the  time.  The  body  was  but 
a  shell,  a  prison  in  which  the  soul  was  confined,  and 
against  whose  bars  its  aspirations  continually  beat  and 
bruised  themselves.  In  another  image,  the  body  was  a 
wayside  barn  in  which  the  weary  pilgrim  laid  himself 
down  to  rest  till  break  of  day.  The  flesh  was  an  incum- 
brance to  the  spirit,  a  clog,  a  burden,  a  snare.  Men  had 
been  told  to  "  keep  the  body  under,"  and  perchance  this 
was  thought  to  be  an  easier  task  if  that  body  were  small 
and  weak. 

I  do  not  mean  to  be  understood  as  asserting  that  in 
those  days  the  mens  sana  in  corpore  sano  was  never 
spoken  of,  or  that  there  was  no  formal  teaching  of  the 
duty  of  preserving  bodily  health.  Such  precepts,  how- 
ever, could  have  little  effect  against  general  tendencies 


COLLEGE  ATHLETICS.  265 

of  thought  and  feeling ;  and  even  among  the  most  intelli- 
gent teachers  of  those  days  there  was  manifest  a  strong 
dislike,  a  sharp  shrinking  from  all  dwelling  upon  the 
physical  basis  of  life,  as  savoring  of  materialism.  As  to 
acknowledging  the  relationship  of  man  to  the  other 
orders  of  animals,  that  would  have  filled  the  pious  mind 
with  horror.  The  philosophy  of  the  time  had,  indeed, 
to  admit  that  the  soul  was  in  a  degree  conditioned  as  to 
its  manifestations,  and  especially  as  to  its  influence  upon 
others,  by  purely  physical  causes.  But  the  soul  itself 
was  a  thing  transcendent,  supernal,  and  self-sufficing, 
which  when  released  from  the  clogs  of  flesh  became  at 
once  as  perfect,  pure,  free,  and  strong  as  if  its  tenement, 
while  in  residence  here,  had  been  more  worthy  of  it. 

All  the  notions  referred  to,  so  prevalent  and  so  potent 
in  at  least  this  section  of  the  United  States  forty  or 
seventy  years  ago,  have  gone,  and  gone  together. 
Other  ideas  better  suited  to  inspire  a  progressive  civiliza- 
tion have  taken  their  place.  In  part  this  has  been  due 
to  the  decay  of  superstitions  derived  from  primitive 
savagery,  in  part  to  the  effects  of  positive  teaching,  in 
greater  part  still  to  further  experience  of  life.  Biology 
has  done  its  share;  political  education  has  done  its  share; 
the  war  of  secession  wrought  its  appointed  work  in  the 
same  direction.  The  men  of  to-day  are  generally  agreed 
that  they  are  likely  to  live  long  enough  to  make  it  wise 
to  think  a  hundred  times  how  they  shall  live,  to  once 
thinking  how  they  shall  die.  The  caravansary  idea  of 
existence  has  been  abandoned.     Man  is  not  a  pilgrim. 


266  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

but  a  citizen.  He  is  going  to  tarry  nights  enough  to 
make  it  worth  while  to  patch  up  the  tenement  and  even 
to  look  into  the  drainage.  This  world  is  a  place  to  work 
in;  activity  and  development,  not  sujffering  or  self- 
repression,  its  law. 

The  present  generation  has  witnessed  a  wonderful 
diminution  of  spiritual  self-consciousness.  Better 
physiology,  coinciding  with  some  changes  in  popular 
ideals,  has  driven  away  the  notions  about  the  flesh  as  an 
incumbrance,  a  clog,  a  burden,  a  snare.  It  is  seen  that 
•  morbid  or  even  merely  feeble  conditions  of  body  tend  to 
generate  delusions,  selfishness,  and  susceptibility  to  the 
worst  impulses.  This  is  seen  to  be  the  case  not  the  less 
because  of  the  saintliness  and  the  heroic  constancy  of  a 
million  sufferers  from  pain  and  infirmity.  Hearty 
physical  force  may,  indeed,  consist  with  vicious  desires, 
but  it  does  not  favor  them.  On  the  contrary,  it  does  in 
a  way  and  in  a  degree  tend  to  diminish  and  to  uproot 
them.  Vicious  desires  are  at  their  worst  in  feebleness 
and  in  morbid  conditions  of  body.  The  sounder  a  man 
is,  the  stronger  he  is,  the  less — other  things  equal — is  he 
subject  to  what  is  bad  and  degrading;  the  more  pleasure 
does  he  take  in  what  is  natural,  healthful,  and  elevating. 
To  a  man  perfectly  sane  physically  life  itself  becomes 
a  joy.  The  relish  for  it  does  not  need  to  be  stimulated 
by  the  spices  of  vicious  indulgence  any  more  than  a 
healthy  appetite  needs  to  be  stimulated  by  the  spices  of 
the  cuisine. 

The  sociological  investigations  into  the  causes  and 


COLLEGE  ATHLETICS.  267 

manifestations  of  crime,  so  actively  in  progress  during 
the  past  few  years,  have  added  much  to  our  knowledge 
of  human  nature  in  its  self-respecting  and  law-abiding 
phases.  The  popular  idea  of  the  criminal  once  was 
that  of  a  powerful  brute,  whose  offenses  against  society 
resulted  from  an  excess  of  physical  vigor  not  counter- 
balanced by  moral  and  intellectual  forces.  It  is  now 
known  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  prisoners  in  our  jails 
are,  as  a  class,  undersized  and  undervitalized  creatures, 
often  with  a  deficiency  of  co-ordination  between  their 
faculties,  sometimes  with  a  minimum  of  control  over 
their  own  actions  and  little  adaptability  to  social  and  in- 
dustrial functions.  In  the  remarkable,  the  truly 
admirable  reformatory  enterprise  of  Superintendent 
Brockway  at  Elmira,  gymnastics,  regulated  exercise, 
and  manual  training  perform  a  most  important  part. 

In  the  revolution  of  thought  regarding  bodily  devel- 
opment and  physical  prowess  Mr.  Beecher  exerted  a 
great  influence.  He  it  was  who  led  off  in  favor  of  Mus- 
cular Christianity.  During  the  controversy  on  that 
subject  which  attracted  so  much  attention  just  before 
the  outbreak  of  our  great  war  there  was,  we  must  admit, 
not  a  little  exaggeration  on  the  part  of  the  advocates  of 
physical  culture.  Many  wrote  and  spoke  as  if  all  evil 
were  to  be  worked  off  in  the  gymnasium  and  on  the  race 
track;  as  if  every  vice  of  human  nature  would  exude 
through  the  pores  of  the  skin  were  perspiration  only 
sufficiently  active  and  long  enough  maintained.  But 
in  spite  of  much  that  was  crude  and  foolish,  these  men 


268  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

had  hold  of  a  great  truth,  and  thej  did  not  let  go  until 
they  had  drawn  it  out  into  the  light.  The  War  of 
Secession,  also,  which  has  been  adverted  to,  came  in  to 
produce  a  vast  change  in  popular  sentiments  and  ideals, 
as  it  showed  how  much  nobler  are  strength  of  will,  firm- 
ness of  purpose,  resolution  to  endure,  and  capacity  for 
action  than  are  the  qualities  of  the  speech-maker  and  the 
fine  writer,  which  the  nation  had  once  agreed  chiefly  to 
admire. 

With  this  change  of  opinion  regarding  physical  force 
and  physical  training  in  the  individual  has  come  a 
notable  change  in  the  political  philosophy  of  the  age. 
Larger  experience  of  affairs  has  shown  the  folly  of  dis- 
regarding political  mechanism.  It  is  seen  that  it  is  hard 
enough  to  keep  the  balance  of  forces  upon  the  right  side, 
if  every  safeguard  be  adopted,  every  device  used,  and 
every  means  employed  to  give  a  preference  to  those  who 
stand  for  order,  decency,  and  honesty  in  the  community. 
We  are  all  now  for  making  the  devil  fight  with  the  sun 
in  his  eyes,  instead  of  at  his  back,  and  with  the  advan- 
tage of  the  ground  against  him,  instead  of  in  his  favor. 
We  no  longer  with  confidence  hold  that  a  virtuous  people 
will  necessarily  have  a  good  government.  On  the  con- 
trary, we  recognize  that  a  people  virtuous  above  the 
average  may  be  made,  through  a  bad  organization  of  the 
public  forces,  to  act  almost  as  if  they  were  the  most 
cowardly  and  dishonest  of  their  kind,  as  did  our  fore- 
fathers under  the  confederation  of  1781-87.  It  is  true 
that  the  stream  may  not  of  itself  rise  higher  than  its 


COLLEGE  ATHLETICS.  269 

source,  but  by  machinery  we  can  send  a  stream  a  good 
deal  higher  than  its  source,  and  can  make  it  do  there 
more  of  vitally  essential  work  than  could  all  the  waters 
of  old  ocean  lying  at  their  level.  Instead  of  discarding 
political  mechanism,  therefore,  the  men  of  to-day  believe 
in  political  machinery,  like  that  of  the  Australian  ballot 
system.  They  have  learned  that  by  means  of  it  they 
can  help  the  cause  of  righteousness,  and  at  times  turn 
the  scale  against  the  forces  of  evil.  They  not  only  be- 
lieve in  political  machinery,  they  even  believe  in  politi- 
cal machines,  actual  structures  of  wood  and  glass  like 
the  patent  ballot-box,  as  important  agencies  to  defeat 
the  baser  elements  of  society. 

Again,  "  mere  bigness  "  has  ceased  to  be  a  term  of 
contempt  as  applied  to  nations.  Power  in  a  people  has 
become  a  thing  admired.  It  is  felt  that  it  is  indeed  a 
glorious  thing  to  have  a  giant's  strength ;  nor  is  it  longer 
believed  that  the  disposition  to  use  strength  tyrannously 
grows  with  the  opportunity.  The  idea  once  prevalent 
that  its  possession  leads  to  brutality  and  insolence  has 
not  been  borne  out  by  the  history  of  our  own  people. 
As  the  United  States  have  grown  more  powerful  they 
have  grown  more  peaceful.  In  the  early  days  of  the 
republic  our  petulance,  irritability,  and  pugnacity  made 
us  a  nuisance  and  a  pest  among  the  nations.  Swagger 
and  unbounded  brag  characterized  our  earlier  diplomatic 
history;  while  the  war  with  llexico,  the  cheap  talk  about 
"  manifest  destiny,"  and  the  filibustering  excursions  of 
the  middle  of  the  century  seemed  to  point  us  out  as  a 


270  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

bad  neighbor  to  tbe  strong  and  a  bully  towards  the 
weak. 

Doubtless  the  slave  power  was  in  some  degree  ac- 
countable for  this;  but  in  greater  measure  it  was  due  to 
lack  of  confidence  in  ourselves.  We  were  always  afraid 
that  we  were  not  going  to  be  respected  and  treated  with 
due  consideration.  We  felt  that  we  were  looked  down 
upon  because  we  were  young  and  small.  No  sooner 
was  the  mighty  demonstration  made  of  our  courage  and 
military  strength  in  that  great  Civil  War  which  will 
always  remain  one  of  the  marvels  of  human  history,  than 
all  this  fell  away  from  the  nation  like  some  loathsome 
rheum  of  childhood.  To-day  Canada  and  Mexico  re- 
pose under  the  shadow  of  our  irresistible  power  without 
an  apprehension  of  harm  or  wrong,  and  it  is  even  diffi- 
cult to  secure  from  an  over-lavish  Congress  appropria- 
tions sufficient  to  enable  us  to  make  a  decent  show  of 
naval  power  in  the  great  harbors  of  the  world.  It  is  true 
we  have  recently  suffered  an  apparent  brief  access  of 
jingoism,  owing  to  certain  unfortunate  political  compli- 
cations; but  the  readiness  with  which  the  affair  with 
Chile  was  adjusted  and  the  general  applause  with  which 
our  flag  was  hauled  down  from  the  government  house 
at  Hawaii  showed  how  superficial  and  how  partial  was 
the  infection. 

After  this  long  and  tedious  statement  of  changes  in 
the  ideas  and  sentiments  of  our  people  in  the  several 
directions  indicated,  is  it  too  much  to  say  that,  as  a  com- 
munity, we  have  got  down  upon  a  sound,  practical,  sen- 


COLLEGE  ATHLETICS.  271 

aible,  worldly  basis  of  life,  mucli  more  promising  for 
morality,  for  a  steadily  progressive  civilization,  for 
enduring  enthusiasms — aye,  for  worthy  aspirations  and 
a  true  spirituality — than  the  unreal,  morbid  transcen- 
dentalism and  sentimentalism  of  three,  two,  or  even  only 
pne  generation  ago? 

Among  the  many  things,  good  or  bad  as  people  may 
esteem  them,  resulting  from  the  changes  in  feelings, 
views,  and  ideals  which  have  been  indicated,  are  two 
which  especially  concern  colleges  and  college  men:  The 
first  is  the  general  disappearance,  most  fortunate  as  I 
esteem  it,  of  the  literary  societies  formerly  so  flourish- 
ing, and  the  decay  of  oratory,  declamation,  and  debate, 
which  to  many  once  made  up  the  main  interest  of  college 
life.  The  second  is  the  rapid  growth  of  athletics,  in 
which  immense  honor  is  given  to  young  men  because 
they  are  strong,  swift,  enduring,  and  brave;  in  which 
the  blood  of  the  whole  community  is  stirred  by  physical 
contests  among  the  picked  youth  of  the  land  as  once  it 
was  stirred  only  by  tales  of  battle.  This  last  it  is  which 
has  given  me  my  subject  to-day. 

That  the  general  introduction  of  gymnastics  into  col- 
leges is  desirable,  few  will  deny.  Young  men  of  the 
college  age  whose  occupations  are  largely  sedentary 
should  be  encouraged  to  undertake  systematic  and  ex- 
tended exercise  in  order  to  correct  the  faults  of  the  study 
and  recitation-room,  to  expand  their  frames,  and  to  pro- 
mote an  active  circulation.  Amherst  is  entitled  to  the 
high  honor  of  being  the  first  of  the  American  colleges 


272  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

to  make  ample  and  suitable  provision  for  students'  needs 
in  this  respect.  In  1861,  under  the  presidency  of  Dr. 
Stearns,  a  gymnasium,  large  and  well  equipped  accord- 
ing to  the  standard  of  those  days,  was  placed  upon  the 
campus;  daily  exercise  was  made  compulsory  upon  stu- 
dents not  excused  for  cause,  and  a  certificated  physician 
was  made  director  of  physical  culture  and  lecturer  on 
physiology  and  hygiene.  Few  colleges  have  followed 
Amherst  in  making  exercise  other  than  in  the  form  of 
military  drill  compulsory;*  but  fewer  still  now  fail  to 
afford  their  pupils  opportunity  for  voluntary  gym- 
nastics to  the  top  of  their  bent.  The  improvement  thus 
wrought  in  the  physique  of  our  college  students  does  not 
need  to  be  shown  statistically;  it  is  manifest  to  the  eye 
of  the  most  casual  observer  who  remembers  the  former 
state  of  things.     So  far,  there  is  no  ground  of  debate; 

'  There  is  no  such  source  of  indiscipline  as  pretended  military  drill 
and  training  when  the  requirements  are  not  promptly,  severely,  and 
unflinchingly  enforced.  There  is  no  better  training  for  mind  and 
body  than  military  drill  well  and  intelligently  carried  on.  All  mod- 
ern drill  associates  with  itself  "setting-up"  exercises  and  regulated 
gymnastics.     The  modern  soldier  must  be  an  athlete. 

I  think  there  is  nothing  which  the  young  men  of  this  country  need 
more  than  to  be  taught  to  obey,  to  "  mind,"  as  the  boys  say;  and  to 
do  it  without  any  nonsense,  or  "back  talk,"  or  delay.  For  lack  of 
this  we  are  raising  up  a  large  class  of  boys  who,  in  mind  and  charac- 
ter, are  perfect  "  punk,"  without  fiber  and  without  grain. 

I  do  not  say  that  military  training  and  drill  in  high  schools,  even 
under  the  best  officers,  would  remedy  all  this, — in  most  cases  the 
evil  is  done  before  the  boy  reaches  that  point, — but  I  have  no  doubt 
that  the  effects  would  be  beneficial.  I  am  not  in  favor,  however,  of 
small  or  feeble  boys  carrying  muskets. — Answer  to  the  question: 
"Do  you  believe  that  military  drills  are  consistent  with  pedagogy?" 
asked  in  a  circular  letter  from  the  editors  of  "  Mind  and  Body,"  1896. 


COLLEGE  ATHLETICS.  273 

difference  of  opinion  exists  only  with  respect  to  the  com- 
petitive sports  and  games  which  have  grown  out  of  the 
newly  awakened  interest  in  physical  prowess. 

And  here  let  me  propose  a  distinction  between  gym- 
nastics and  athletics,  which  will  be  carried  through  the 
remainder  of  this  discussion.  That  distinction  is  not 
one  based  upon  etymology,  but  has  reference  to  current 
usage: 

Gymnastics  are  for  individual  training  and  develop- 
ment, with  health  strongly  in  view.  Athletics  take  the 
form  of  competition  and  contest;  emulation  is  their  mov- 
ing spirit,  glory  their  aim. 

As  thus  distinguished  in  their  primary  objects,  ath- 
letics differ  from  gymnastics  in  two  respects:  First,  by 
specialization,  as  when  a  man  chooses  his  line  of  work  in 
athletics — whether  that  be  pole-vaulting,  or  hurdle- 
racing,  or  rowing,  or  pitching  in  baseball,  or  playing  a 
certain  position  in  football — and  thereafter  devotes  his 
energies  to  working  himself  up  to  the  highest  point  of 
efficiency  in  that  line ;  secondly,  by  excess  in  the  amount 
of  exercise  over  what  would  be  required  or  would  be  per- 
formed without  the  introduction  of  the  spirit  of  emula- 
tion. So  great  is  this  excess  that  it  may  not  unfairly  be 
said  that  athletics  begin  where  gymnastics  leave  off. 

The  effects  of  specialization  in  athletics  are  too  much 
a  matter  of  detail  to  be  entered  upon  here.  Suffice  it, 
in  a  word,  to  say  that  they  are  not  unlike  those  of  special- 
ization in  industry — good  and  evil  being  mingled,  with, 
in  general,  the  preponderance  largely  on  the  side  of  the 


274  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

good.  Specialization  affords  to  bodily  exercise  a  more 
direct  object  and  creates  a  far  more  intense  and  sustained 
interest.  Moreover,  for  tbe  best  specialized  work  it  is 
well  known  that  at  least  a  fair  all-around  development 
is  almost  always  a  necessary  condition. 

Tbe  excess  of  exercise  in  athletics  over  gymnastics, 
as  we  have  defined  these  terms,  is  it  of  good  or  of  evil? 
Is  it  a  gain,  or  mere  waste,  or  a  positive  injury?  Gym- 
nastics are  a  means  to  the  end  of  health  and  vigor. 
Athletics  become  an  end  in  themselves.  With  excep- 
tions too  inconsiderable  to  be  enumerated,  the  athlete 
competing  for  championship  honors  takes  more  exercise, 
often  far  more  exercise,  than  is  required  for  health  and 
strength  with  a  view  to  the  peaceful  and  industrial  pur- 
suits of  life.  Vital  force  is  consumed,  not  created,  by 
the  final  contests  in  which  he  engages,  and  not  infre- 
quently by  the  training  to  which  he  subjects  himself  in 
preparation  for  them.  The  consumption  of  vital  force 
in  athletics,  if  we  contemplate  young  men  who  are  fully 
grown  or  nearly  so,  may  be  considered  as  of  two  degrees: 
First,  where  vital  force  is  consumed  in  competitive 
sports  and  games  as  it  might  be  consumed  in  study  or  in 
the  production  of  wealth,  without  impairing  the  consti- 
tution or  diminishing  the  physical  endowment  upon  the 
strength  of  which  the  subsequent  work  of  life  is  to  be 
done ;  secondly,  where  exercise  is  carried  so  far  and  such 
violent  exertions  are  made  that  not  merely  is  the  current 
supply  of  vigor  used  up  in  this  way,  but  the  constitution 
is  undermined  and  injuries  are  sustained  or  exhaustion 


COLLEGE  ATHLETICS.  275 

induced  which  result  in  leaving  the  man  less  healthy  or 
less  powerful  through  the  remaining  years  of  his  life. 

Of  the  severer  forms  of  athletic  competition  and  con- 
test, which  injuriously  affect  the  constitution  and  per- 
manently impair  the  vital  force,  but  one  thing  can  be 
said:  they  are  evil  and  only  evil,  l^o  earthly  object, 
except  the  saving  of  others'  lives  or  the  defense  of  one's 
country,  could  justify  such  destructive  exercises  and 
exertions.  I  am  disposed,  however,  to  believe  that  there 
has  been  much  exaggeration  in  the  public  mind  regard- 
ing this  matter,  and  that  instances  of  permanent  injury 
from,  athletics  are  fewer  than  popular  rumor  or  maternal 
anxiety  makes  them  to  be.  The  life  history  of  the  lead- 
ing football  players  of  the  past  fifteen  years,  notwith- 
standing the  frequency  with  which  contusions,  sprains, 
and  even  broken  bones  occur  in  the  tremendous  strug- 
gles of  that  mighty  game,  makes  up  a  record  of  vitality 
and  activity  in  the  period  succeeding  graduation  which 
proves  that,  despite  the  occasional  outcries  of  the  press, 
this  form  of  athletic  contest  works  little  enduring  injury 
among  thoroughly  trained  competitors.  The  more 
serious  accidents  of  football  generally  occur  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  season  and  among  players  who  have  not 
passed  carefully  through  the  hardening  stages  of  prac- 
tice. Boat-racing  is  probably  fraught  with,  much  more 
real  peril  to  its  participants;  yet  a  distinguished  English 
statistician,  studying  the  life  history  of  three  hundred 
and  twenty  "  Oxford  oars,"  has  reached  the  conclusion 
that,  even  after  making  due  allowance  for  the  fact  that 


276  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

these  were  all  at  tJie  start  picked  men,  this  great  body  of 
athletes  showed  a  vitality  distinctly  above  the  average. 
Yet,  when  all  has  been  said,  it  is  still  beyond  question 
true  that  in  the  present  intense  interest  in  physical 
contests  there  is  a  real  danger  to  be  guarded  against, 
especially  among  the  younger  and  less  experienced 
competitors. 

Of  those  physical  contests  which  result  merely  in  the 
consumption  at  the  time  of  current  physical  force  which 
would  otherwise,  or  might  otherwise,  be  devoted  to 
study,  we  cannot  dispose  so  confidently  and  summarily. 
To  those  who  hold  to  the  good  old  notion — the  excellent, 
virtuous  notion — that  all  young  men  go  to  college  to 
make  themselves  scholars,  it  is,  indeed,  a  great  trial  to 
have  to  contemplate  a  state  of  things  in  which  no  incon- 
siderable proportion  of  students  treat  scholarship  as  an 
object  distinctly  subordinate  to  gladiatorial  prowess,  and 
who  are  graduated  really,  if  they  are  graduated  at  all,  in 
athletics  as  a  major,  with  classics,  or  mathematics,  or 
philosophy,  or  something  else  as  a  minor, — or  perhaps 
we  should  say,  a  minimum.  Certainly  this  presents  a 
view  of  college  life  which  would  have  filled  with  horror 
the  founders  and  early  governors  of  our  New  England 
colleges.  And  it  needs  to  be  said  at  the  outset,  in  deal- 
ing with  this  subject,  that  there  are  hosts  of  young  men 
coming  to  college  whose  circumstances  and  means  and 
views  and  plans  of  life  are  such  that  they  cannot  afford 
to  treat  their  educational  privileges  in  this  way;  who  if 
they  "  go  into  athletics,"  in  the  accepted  sense  of  that 


COLLEGE  ATHLETICS.  277 

phrase,  will  sacrifice  the  one  opportunity  offered  them; 
whose  presence  with  their  classes  means  a  degree  of  sac- 
rifice and  self-denial  on  the  part  of  parents  and  friends 
which  would  make  it  little  less  than  profanation  to  waste 
an  hour  of  the  time  purchased  at  such  a  price.  And  yet, 
with  due  consideration  for  the  rights  and  interests  of 
students  like  these,  college  athletics  confessedly  as  an 
end  in  themselves  are  not  wholly  evil.  Several  things 
have  to  be  considered  before  we  are  fairly  in  a  position 
to  pass  judgment  upon  them. 

The  least  important  thing  that  can  be  said  in  their 
favor  is  that  they  afford  enjoyment  to  vast  numbers 
throughout  the  land ;  yet,  for  one,  I  would  not  treat  even 
this  consideration  as  unworthy  of  respect.  The  college 
athletics  of  to-day  do  wonderfully  light  up  the  life  of 
our  people.  The  great  recurring  contests  and  the  inter- 
mediate practice  games  and  friendly  competitions  of  the 
several  teams  give  acute  delight  to  a  large  and  increas- 
ing constituency.  This  nation  has  long  shown  the  pain- 
ful need  of  more  in  the  way  of  popular  amusement,  of 
more  that  shall  call  men  in  great  throngs  out  into  the 
open  air,  of  more  that  shall  arouse  an  interest  in  some- 
thing besides  money-getting  or  professional  preferment. 
In  these  respects  college  athletics  have  made  an  impor- 
tant contribution  within  the  past  few  years.  The  mar- 
velous rapidity  with  which  football  has  spread  and  is 
still  spreading  throughout  the  Western  and  Southern 
States  shows  how  eagerly  it  is  welcomed  as  a  relief  to 
the  monotony  of  life. 


278  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

A  stronger  plea  for  college  athletics  is  made  when  it 
is  urged  that  they  result  in  stimulating  an  interest  in 
gymnastics  not  only  among  those  students  who  do  not 
engage  in  competitive  contests,  but  also  throughout  the 
general  community.  The  effect  of  this  may  easily  be 
exaggerated.  There  is  many  a  weak-kneed  collegian 
who  crawls  out  to  witness  the  great  baseball  or  football 
game  of  the  year,  looks  on  with  intense  delight,  cheers  the 
victors,  if  of  his  own  side,  as  loudly  as  his  limited  lung 
capacity  will  permit,  and  then,  when  all  is  over,  crawls 
back  again  to  his  room  without  so  much  as  a  conscious 
impulse  to  improve  his  own  bodily  condition.  Yet  it  is 
certain  that  the  cause  indicated  has  an  influence,  and  an 
influence  not  inconsiderable,  for  good.  Admiration  for 
manly  prowess  and  the  contemplation  of  fine  physical 
development  cannot  fail  to  secure  a  much  wider  cultiva- 
tion of  gymnastics  than  would  take  place  without  it. 

But,  again,  it  must  be  said  that  the  favorite  athletics 
of  to-day  are,  in  great  measure,  such  as  call  for  more 
than  mere  strength  and  swiftness.  They  demand,  also, 
steadiness  of  nerve,  quickness  of  apprehension,  coolness, 
resourcefulness,  self-knowledge,  self-reliance.  Further 
still,  they  often  demand  of  the  contestants  the  ability  to 
work  with  others,  power  of  combination,  readiness  to 
subordinate  individual  impulses,  selfish  desires,  and  even 
personal  credit  to  a  common  end.  These  are  all  quali- 
ties useful  in  any  profession;  in  some  professions  they 
are  of  the  highest  value;  and  it  cannot  be  gainsaid  that 
it  is  the  normal  effect  of  certain  kinds  of  athletic  sports 


COLLEGE  ATHLETICS.  279 

to  develop  these  qualities  among  the  contestants,  as  well 
as  to  afford  impressive  examples  to  the  minds  of  the 
spectators.  So  genuine  does  this  advantage  appear  to 
me  that  were  I  superintendent  of  the  academy  at  West 
Point  I  would  encourage  the  game  of  football  among 
the  cadets  as  a  military  exercise  of  no  mean  importance. 
It  is  the  opinion  of  most  educated  Englishmen  that  the 
cultivation  of  this  sport  in  the  public  schools  of  that 
country  has  had  not  a  little  to  do  with  the  courage,  ad- 
dress, and  energy  with  which  the  graduates  of  Rugby, 
Eton,  and  Harrow  have  made  their  way  through  dangers 
and  over  difficulties  in  all  quarters  of  the  globe. 

The  last  consideration  which  I  would  adduce  to  show 
that  what  is  sacrificed  in  athletics  is  not  all  lost  is  that  in 
the  competitive  contests  of  our  colleges  something  akin 
to  patriotism  and  public  spirit  is  developed,  with  results, 
on  the  whole,  of  good.  It  is  true  that  young  men  often 
carry  their  manifestations  of  zeal  and  devotion  to  their 
colleges  too  far.  Yet,  both  as  counteracting  the  selfish, 
individualistic  tendencies  of  the  age  and  as  an  antidote 
to  the  nil  admirari  affectations  of  our  older  colleges,  it 
is  a  good  thing  that  the  body  of  students  should  now  and 
then  be  stirred  to  the  very  depths  of  their  souls;  that 
they  should  have  something  outside  themselves  to  care 
for;  that  they  should  learn  to  love  passionately,  even  if 
a  little  animosity  towards  rivals  must  mingle  with  their 
patriotic  fervor;  that  they  should  at  times  palpitate  with 
hope  and  fear  and  anxiety  in  the  view  of  objects  which 
can  bring  to  them  personally  neither  gain  nor  loss. 


280  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

Of  the  special  evils  of  college  athletics  as  now  culti- 
vated I  do  not  purpose  to  speak  at  length.  Some  of 
those  at  present  most  clearly  perceived  are  chiefly  due 
to  newness  and  rawness,  and  will  of  themselves  dis- 
appear, in  whole  or  in  part,  with  time  and  further  ex- 
perience. Faults  of  method  have  yet  to  be  eliminated; 
the  traditions  of  the  several  games  have  yet  to  be 
created.  For  example,  that  regard  for  fair  play,  that 
respect  for  the  rights  of  an  opponent,  that  deference  to 
the  decisions  of  the  umpire,  so  conspicuous  in  England, 
have  there  been  the  work  of  generations.  They  cannot 
be  built  up  in  a  day  with  us.  Yet  our  people  are  won- 
derfully quick  to  learn,  especially  to  learn  everything 
that  conduces  to  harmony  and  adjustment  of  claims;  the 
American  is  eminently  and  pre-eminently  a  political  ani- 
mal; and  nowhere  in  the  world  are  great  crowds  so 
orderly,  peaceable,  and  good-natured  as  here. 

One  of  the  first  things  which  should  receive  the  atten- 
tion of  all  lovers  of  fair  play  is  the  complete  abolition, 
onoe  and  for  all,  of  the  unsportsmanlike  system  of  organ- 
ized cheering  by  great  bodies  of  collegians  grouped 
together  for  the  purpose,  with  chosen  youths  of  pecuhar 
gesticulatory  graces  and  extraordinary  lung  power  to 
start  the  movement  and  "  deacon  off "  the  shouting. 
Such  a  line  of  conduct,  thoughtlessly  resorted  to  in  the 
heat  of  partisanship,  is  unworthy  of  educated  men.  It 
is  unfair  to  the  visiting  team,  who  by  all  the  laws  of 
courtesy  are  entitled  to  special  consideration.  How 
much  more  pleasing  to  the  spectator,  how  much  more 


COLLEGE  ATHLETICS.  281 

creditable  to  the  home  college,  if  the  stranger  for  the 
while  within  its  gates  were  to  be  treated  with  something 
like  the  grace  of  antique  chivalry! 

Again,  we  may  confidently  expect  that  the  machinery 
for  carrying  on  sports  and  contests  will  undergo  a  steady 
improvement.  We  see  a  remarkable  instance  of  the 
virtue  of  this  in  the  appointment  of  the  second  umpire 
at  football,  which  at  once  did  away  with  certain  ten- 
dencies that  had  threatened  to  make  the  game  impos- 
sible. Audiences,  too,  must  be  trained  to  appreciate 
the  finer  points,  to  applaud  good  work  by  whomsoever 
done,  and  to  be  as  virtuous  as  a  Greek  chorus,  to  the  end 
that  the  game  may  be  played  by  the  players  and  not  by 
the  spectators.  The  co-operation  of  alumni  is  also  to  be 
invoked  to  give  wisdom,  weight,  and  temper  to  the  action 
of  the  undergraduate  bodies.  Not  least, — nay,  perhaps 
hardest  of  all, — Faculties  are  to  be  educated,  to  avoid 
intermeddling  and  petty  dictation  on  the  one  hand,  and 
to  sustain  the  claims  of  scholarship  and  enforce  the  right 
discipline  of  college  on  the  other. 

The  last  clause  suggests  one  of  the  most  important 
considerations  related  to  the  subject.  Granting  that 
something,  and  that  not  a  little,  of  scholarship  must  be 
sacrificed  if  athletics  are  to  be  continued  on  anything 
approaching  their  present  scale,  may  we  yet  believe  that 
it  is  practicable  to  insist  upon  the  requirement  of  at 
least  respectable  standing  in  the  case  of  all  who  partici- 
pate in  intercollegiate  contests?  I  believe  that  this  can 
be  done  without  interfering  with  the  general  movement, 


282  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

provided  college  Faculties  are  true  to  themselves,  fair, 
frank,  and  firm  in  dealing  with  the  student  bodies,  and 
thoroughly  honest  in  their  treatment  of  the  subject.  I 
would  not  be  understood  to  intimate  that  a  certain 
amount  of  good  sense  would  be  out  of  place. 

Perhaps  it  will  not  be  taken  amiss  if  I  allude  here  to 
the  results  of  my  own  observation  in  a  sister  university 
regarding  which  it  has  been  my  lot  to  know  more  than 
I  do  concerning  Harvard.  At  Yale,  and  especially  in 
the  scientific  department,  the  Faculty  appear  to  m.e  to 
have  been  highly  successful  in  preventing  a  total  sacri- 
fice of  scholarly  standing  to  intercollegiate  sports.  But 
a  small  proportion  of  the  champion  athletes  in  that  uni- 
versity, a  smaller  proportion  still  in  the  scientific  school, 
have  been  men  at  or  near  the  foot  of  their  classes — the 
sort  of  men  who  have  to  be  hounded,  threatened,  and 
repeatedly  conditioned  in  order  to  keep  them  up  to  the 
mark.  Not  a  few  of  them,  from  Kennedy  to  Hartwell, 
have  been  high  up  on  the  roll  of  academic  honor.  I 
attribute  this  excellent  result  to  the  thoroughly  good 
understanding  between  students  and  the  Faculty,  to  the 
absence  of  petty  prescriptions  and  of  all  intermeddling 
as  to  details,  and  to  the  frankness  with  which  the  few 
positive  requirements  relating  to  the  subject  are  stated 
and  enforced. 

I  fear  there  is  little  in  what  has  been  here  said  to  give 
comfort  to  those  who  distrust  and  dislike  college  ath- 
letics— little  which  intimates  the  opinion  that  the 
athleticism  of  to-day  is  only  a  reaction  after  the  former 


COLLEGE  ATHLETICS.  288 

total  neglect  of  gymnastics,  or  a  mere  passing  passion 
among  our  youth.  But  if  we  concede  that  these  exer- 
cises and  contests  are  to  hold  their  place  in  American 
life,  is  there  no  stopping-place,  no  point  at  which  college 
authorities  or  the  young  men  themselves,  on  their  own 
motion,  in  their  own  discretion,  for  their  own  good,  can 
say,  "  Thus  far  and  no  farther  "? 

I  answer,  yes;  there  is  such  a  natural  stopping-place. 
It  is  at  the  doors  of  the  professional  school.  Among 
young  men  in  the  course  of  education,  athletics  should 
belong  to  the  college  stage;  gymnastics  to  all  stages. 
Whether  this  shall  be  done  by  regulation,  or  be  left  to 
the  operation  of  forces  working  upon  the  minds  of  the 
individuals  concerned,  I  believe  the  result  indicated 
will,  in  either  case,  be  reached.  Already  the  under- 
graduate principle  is  widely  though  irregularly  recog- 
nized; and  the  movement  of  opinion  is  still  clearly  in 
progress  in  this  direction.  Here  at  Harvard  you  have 
seen  many  a  renowned  champion  put  off  athletics  as  he 
entered  the  law  school  or  the  medical  school.  The  rule 
should  be  made  of  imiversal  application;  and  it  will  re- 
quire but  a  little  more  discussion,  a  little  higher  educa- 
tion of  student-opinion,  to  bring  this  about.  In  and 
after  the  professional  school,  whether  that  be  a  school  of 
law,  of  medicine,  of  divinity,  or  of  technology,  there 
should  be  no  representative  teams.  The  principle  of 
competition  and  championship  should  be  dropped.  In- 
dividuals should  continue,  at  their  pleasure,  to  play 
tennis  or  cricket  or  football  with  their  classes,  with  pri- 


284  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

vate  clubs,  or  in  town  and  county  matches;  or  if  teams 
be  formed  in  such  schools  they  should  not  be  regarded 
as  carrying  the  honor  of  their  institutions  around  with 
them.  Such  teams  should  not  expect  victory.  They 
should  play  for  exercise  and  for  the  fun  of  the  thing, 
and  should  accept  their  inevitable  beating  with  serenity 
and  good  nature,  recognizing  the  fact  that  since  they 
have  taken  up  the  serious  work  of  professional  prepara- 
tion for  life  they  no  longer  have  the  time  or  the  strength 
at  command  to  make  and  to  keep  them  champions. 

There  is  one  remaining  question  regarding  the  ath- 
leticism of  to-day,  which  I  feel  myself  so  little  qualified 
to  discuss  that  I  did  not  even  allude  to  it  while  enumerat- 
ing the  things  that  might  be  said  in  favor  of  competitive 
sports,  or  at  least  in  deprecation  of  the  hostile  criticisms 
directed  upon  them,  but  which  in  closing  I  would  pro- 
pose to  your  sounder  judgment  and  keener  thought. 

It  is  whether  the  college  athletics,  which  so  many  ap- 
prove and  so  many  condemn,  have  not  after  all  a  deeper 
significance — whether  this  remarkable  outburst  of 
enthusiasm  for  physical  development  and  for  the  per- 
fecting of  the  human  body  is  not  related,  perhaps  vitally 
and  intimately,  to  the  growth  of  a  feeling  for  art  in  this 
new  land  of  ours.  No  classical  scholar  will  for  a  mo- 
ment admit  it  to  have  been  an  accidental  coincidence 
that  the  nation  of  the  Old  World  which  pursued  ath- 
letics with  the  most  passionate  eagerness,  which  show- 
ered honors  upon  the  victor  in  running  or  in  wrestling 
not  inferior  to  those  which  it  gave  to  the  author  of  an 


r 


COLLEGE  ATELETIOS.  285 


accepted  tragedy — that  nation  wliose  tribes  came  by 
long  and  perilous  journeys  over  stormy  seas  to  witness 
the  great  athletic  competitions  by  the  banks  of  the 
Alpheus  or  on  the  Crisssean  plain — ^was  the  same  nation 
which  carried  the  arts,  and  especially  the  plastic  arts,  to 
the  highest  point  of  perfection  ever  attained. 

If,  indeed,  there  is  believed  to  have  been  a  vital  con- 
nection between  these  seemingly  diverse  manifestations 
of  Grecian  life,  who  shall  say  that  the  remarkable  en- 
thusiasm for  physical  training  and  the  intense  interest  in. 
athletic  contests  which  have  been  so  suddenly  developed 
in  our  country  may  not  be  clearly  seen  a  generation 
hence  to  have  accompanied,  and  that  through  no  acci- 
dental association,  the  elevation  of  art  to  a  far  higher 
and  nobler  place  than  it  had  before  occupied  in  the 
thoughts  and  affections  of  our  people?  The  life-class  is 
the  true  school  of  the  artist.  The  greatest  of  all  who 
bear  that  name  have  been  men  who  revered  the  human 
form,  made  it  their  chief  study,  and  found  in  it  their 
highest  delight.  If  in  truth  this  sublime  passion  is  tak- 
ing possession  of  the  nation,  who  shall  estimate  at  a 
price  the  worth  of  that  inspiration?  The  vision  of  the 
Apollo  may  yet  rise  to  the  view  of  thousands  out  and  up 
from  the  arena  at  Springfield,  as  erst  it  rose  before  the 
thronging  multitudes  of  Olympia, 


THE  STUDY  OF  STATISTICS  IN  COL- 
LEGES AND  TECHNICAL  SCHOOLS 
1890 


Prom  the  Technology  Quarterly,  Fesbuart,  1890. 


THE  STUDY  OP  STATISTICS  IN  COLLEGES  AND 
TECHNICAL  SCHOOLS. 

DuEiNG  the  past  twenty  or  even  ten  years  there  has 
been  an  astonishingly  rapid  development  of  historical 
and  economic  studies  in  our  higher  institutions  of  learn- 
ing. At  the  recent  meeting  of  the  American  Historical 
Association,  in  Washington,  President  Adams  of  Cor- 
nell presented  an  account  of  the  work  at  present  done  in 
history  in  our  leading  colleges.  To  one  who  was  gradu- 
ated thirty  years  ago,  this  account  reads  strangely 
enough.  In  place  of,  at  the  most,  a  single  brief  series 
of  lectures  on  the  so-called  philosophy  of  history,  we 
now  find  course  after  course  of  advanced  historical  study, 
with  the  free  use  of  the  library  and  with  the  most  im- 
proved methods  of  the  German  Seminar,  offered  to  stu- 
dents as  a  leading  feature  of  their  undergraduate  work. 
Several  of  our  American  colleges  have  developed  these 
courses  in  such  variety,  to  such  an  extent,  and  with  such 
a  wealth  of  material,  that  they  might  not  unfairly  be 
called  schools  of  history;  and  every  year  sees  this  carried 
further  and  further,  with  continually  better  and  better 
results. 

In  the  kindred  department  of  economics,  the  progress 
made  in  recent  times  has  been  second  only  to  that  which 
we  have  noted  regarding  history.  Indeed,  the  progress 
in  the  case  of  economics  has  been  less  only  in  respect  to 

289 


290  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

the  number  of  colleges  which  have  undertaken  extended 
courses.  In  the  institutions  where  both  the  new  depart- 
ments of  study  and  research  have  been  given  scope,  the 
extent  to  which  political  economy  has  shared  in  the 
growth  of  the  past  few  years  can  scarcely  be  said  to  be 
inferior  to  that  obtained  by  history.  Neither  in  the 
ability  and  reputation  of  the  instructing  staff,  nor  in  the 
number  and  variety  of  courses  offered,  nor  in  the  attend- 
ance and  enthusiasm  of  the  classes  formed,  does  political 
economy  yield  to  history,  at  Harvard,  or  Yale,  or  Co- 
lumbia, or  Cornell.  Together  these  two  closely  related 
departments  make  up  a  very  large  and  constantly  in- 
creasing part  of  the  modern  university. 

Unfortunately,  while  this  rapid  development  of  his- 
torical and  economic  work  has  been  going  on,  a  branch 
of  study  which  has  the  highest  virtue  at  once  to  train  the 
hand  of  the  historical  or  the  economic  scholar  and  to 
furnish  him  with  professional  tools  of  the  first  impor- 
tance has  been  almost  wholly  neglected.  I  refer  to 
statistics,  whose  very  methods  are  hardly  known  to  the 
great  majority  of  our  economists  and  historians;  and 
which  is  still  to  have  its  first  chair  founded  in  an  Ameri- 
can college.  There  are,  indeed,  a  few  schools  where  a 
little  elementary  instruction  has,  of  recent  years,  been 
given  in  the  use  of  figures  as  a  means  of  testing  socio- 
logical conclusions;  but  in  no  one  of  them  has  a  full, 
proper  course  of  statistics  been  established.  It  cannot 
be  long,  however,  before  the  growing  interest  in  eco- 
nomics  and   history   will   compel   the   recognition    of 


TEE  STUDY  OF  STATISTICS.  291 

statistics  as  a  distinct  and  an  important  part  of  the  cur- 
riculum of  every  progressive  institution.  The  main 
difficulty  will  be  to  find  the  men  who  have  had  the  train- 
ing, at  once  severe  and  liberal,  which  will  qualify  them 
to  inspire  and  direct  these  studies. 

The  three  uses  of  statistical  study,  aside  from  its  value 
as  a  means  of  discipline,  are,  in  their  order  from  lowest 
to  highest,  as  follows: 

First,  to  enable  the  student  to  detect  the  fallacies  in 
conclusions  drawn  by  others  from  quantitative  state- 
ments concerning  human  affairs,  actions,  interests,  in 
which  adventitious  elements  lie  concealed,  or  from 
which  something  essential,  or  at  least  relevant,  has,  by 
inadvertence  or  dishonest  design,  been  excluded. 

Secondly,  to  enable  the  writer  or  the  speaker  upon 
politics,  economics,  history,  or  sociology  safely  and 
effectively  to  illustrate  and  emphasize  his  conclusions 
drawn  from  a  study,  itself  perhaps  mainly  or  wholly  non- 
statistical,  of  the  subject  to  which  he  devotes  himself. 

Thirdly,  statistics  may,  under  proper  direction  and 
with  due  safeguards,  be  used  for  the  discovery  of  social 
laws. 

The  first  of  these  objects  could  perhaps  only  be  fully 
attained  through  those  long  and  weary  stages  of  train- 
ing which  would  be  required  to  qualify  one  for  the 
highest  exercise  of  the  statistical  faculty,  as  last  stated; 
but  a  very  large  part,  at  least,  of  the  result  desired,  can 
be  reached  by  a  little  very  elementary  instruction.  To 
take  an  illustration  from  another  department  of  study, 


292  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

we  may  suppose  that  an  adequate  course  in  logic,  suffi- 
cient to  make  a  man,  otherwise  well  trained,  a  sound  and 
accomplished  reasoner,  might  be  compassed  in  a  certain 
number  of  exercises  per  week,  continued  through  two 
academic  years.  Yet,  if  time  be  not  afforded  for  such  a 
course,  a  great  deal  might  be  done  to  enable  the  student 
to  detect  false  conclusions  on  the  part  of  others,  and  to 
save  him  from  the  grosser  errors  of  reasoning  in  his  own 
writing  or  speaking,  by  means  of  a  dozen  hours  devoted 
to  fallacies.  In  much  the  same  way,  if  a  full  course  in 
statistics  cannot  be  given,  a  few  exercises  upon  the 
abuses  of  statistics  may  serve  at  least  to  keep  one  from 
a  certain  class  of  blunders  from  which  men  of  the 
greatest  acuteness  and  learning  might  not  otherwise  be 
exempt. 

Let  us  take  an  illustration  of  the  sort  of  errors  against 
which  the  merest  elementary  study  of  statistics  might 
prove  a  sufficient  protection.  A  meritorious  writer 
adduces  as  a  proof  of  the  great  fall  of  prices  which  took 
place  in  ]!^ew  England  between  1630  and  1640,  that  a 
cow  which,  at  the  former  date,  was  worth  £25  to  £30, 
would  have  brought,  at  the  latter  date,  but  £5  to  £6. 
Now  the  bare  facts  here  are  not  in  dispute;  nor  is  it  to  be 
questioned  that  a  fall,  a  great  fall,  in  prices  did  take 
place  in  New  England  during  the  period  referred  to. 
Yet  the  statement  quoted  contains  a  gigantic  blunder, — 
a  blunder  which  a  student  of  statistics  would  probably 
be  incapable  of  making.  In  1630,  the  value  of  a  cow 
in  New  England  represented  the  immense  cost  and  risk 


THE  STUDY  OF  STATISTICS.  293 

of  bringing  an  animal,  by  a  slow-sailing  vessel,  thousands 
of  miles,  through  comparatively  strange  seas,  into  a  for- 
eign climate.  Ten  years  later,  the  value  of  a  cow  repre- 
sented only  the  cost  and  risk  of  rearing  her  upon  the  soil. 
The  cow  of  1630  might  still  be  living,  surrounded  by 
ten,  twenty,  or  fifty  of  her  descendants,  bom  in  New 
England. 

Errors  of  this  type  are  countless.  They  occur  in  the 
writings,  they  are  heard  in  the  speeches,  of  men  learned 
and  otherwise  acute,  but  who  have  never  been  trained  to 
detect  the  fallacies  that  lurk  so  cunningly  under  all 
groups  of  figures.  Volumes  might  be  filled  with  in- 
stances of  statistical  blunders  of  a  class  which  a  very  ele- 
mentary course  would  forever  render  impossible  to  any 
careful  writer  or  speaker.  Such  a  course  would  em- 
brace a  host  of  illustrations,  affording  examples  of  the 
kinds  of  error  which  especially  beset  the  use  of  figures 
for  sociological  purposes,  and  would  direct  the  attention 
of  the  student  to  the  best  means  of  exercising  care  and 
pains  in  escaping  them. 

It  is  easy  to  say  that,  if  statistics  be  in  truth  such 
"  kittle  cattle,"  if  danger  lurks  thus  under  every  group 
of  figures  relating  to  social  and  economic  matters,  it 
would  be  better  to  eschew  statistics  entirely.  But  man- 
kind will  not  consent  to  give  up  an  agent  of  such  power 
because  of  the  abuses  to  which  it  is  subject.  If  all  men 
at  once  honest  and  candid  were  to  forbear  to  employ 
statistics  in  such  discussions,  lest  peradventure  they 
should  lead  some  astray,  we  may  be  sure  that  all  the  dis- 


294  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

honest  and  uncandid  would  resort  to  their  tables  and 
diagrams  with  redoubled  zeal.  There  are  few  instincts 
more  strong  than  that  which  urges  men  to  give  a  quan- 
titative expression  to  the  results  of  human  experience. 
Men  will  do  it,  or  have  it  done  for  them  by  others.  No 
warning  as  to  the  possible  errors  of  such  evidence  can 
prevent  this  appeal,  or  diminish  the  eagerness  with 
which  it  will  be  made.  What  we  must  needs  do,  if  we 
will  promote  the  truth,  is  to  instruct  and  exercise  the 
citizen,  as  far  as  we  may,  in  the  scrutinizing,  sifting,  and 
testing  of  alleged  statistical  proofs. 

What  has  just  now  been  said  brings  me  to  the  second 
of  the  objects  enumerated  as  to  be  sought  through  the 
study  of  statistics:  namely,  to  qualify  and  prepare  the 
future  writer  or  speaker  upon  political  and  economic  and 
social  questions  safely  and  effectively  to  illustrate  his 
conclusions,  derived  perhaps  through  processes  mainly 
or  wholly  non-statistical.  I  have  said  that  the  instinct 
which  leads  men  to  seek  quantitative  statements  for  the 
results  of  human  experience  is  one  of  the  strongest  in 
our  nature;  and  that  people  will  have  this  done,  whether 
it  is  to  be  done  rightly  or  wrongly.  He  then,  who,  in 
addition  to  the  merits  of  sound  and  just  thinking  on 
social  subjects,  possesses  the  power  of  aptly  using  statis- 
tics, acquires  thereby  a  great  advantage,  whether  in 
exposition  or  in  controversy,  over  almost  anyone,  how- 
ever gifted  or  brilliant  in  argument  or  in  the  graces  of 
speech,  who  has  not  this  peculiar  faculty.  All  who  have 
widely  observed  audiences  gathered  for  the  purposes  of 


THE  STUDY  OF  STATISTICS.  295 

political  discussion  must  have  seen  the  almost  ludicrous 
liking  which  they  have  for  statistical  statements.  The 
crudest  thinking  is  oftentimes  carried  through  by  an 
array  of  worthless  statistics,  which  would  not  bear  a  mo- 
ment of  cool,  critical  investigation.  Quantitative  state- 
ments that  are  scarcely  even  relevant  to  the  subject  are, 
for  popular  purposes,  better  than  none.  What  power, 
then, can  a  real  master  of  statistics  wield  over  his  hearers! 
Attend  a  meeting  where  Mr.  David  Wells  is  speaking, 
and  see  how  he  holds  the  crowded  audience  in  close  at- 
tention for  two  hours,  with  no  help  from  rhetoric,  elocu- 
tion, or  gesticulation,  merely  by  the  strong,  vivid,  effect- 
ive way  in  which  he  marshals  figures.  There  are  few 
orators  who  can  so  completely  command  the  thoughts  of 
their  hearers,  for  the  same  length  of  time,  by  all  the 
graces  of  speech,  or  even  by  stately  and  beautiful 
thoughts,  as  this  publicist,  whose  style  of  speaking  is  not 
merely  unfinished,  but  positively  bad.  Mr.  Cobden 
owed  very  much  of  his  extraordinary  power  to  the  same 
cause.  Mr.  Gladstone  is  an  even  more  remarkable 
example  of  the  virtue  of  this  art.  Unthinking  people 
say  that  he  must  be  a  wonderful  orator,  because,  in  spite 
of  the  serried  masses  of  figures  which  belong  to  a  budget 
epeech,  he  has  more  than  once  held  the  House  of  Com- 
mons strictly  silent  and  attentive  for  the  space  of  three 
or  four  hours.  The  fact  is  that  that  remarkable  success 
was  not  obtained  in  spite  of  statistics,  but  by  reason  of 
them.  There  is  no  spectacle  on  which  men,  whether 
more  or  less  educated,  look  with  more  breathless  interest 


296  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

than  the  marshaling  of  a  vast  array  of  figures  which 
move  and  take  their  allotted  place,  in  natural  succession 
and  in  due  order,  at  the  bidding  of  a  real  master  of  that 
art. 

Since  so  much  popular  interest  attaches  to  the  use  of 
statistics  in  addressing  any  large  audience,  whether  from 
the  platform  or  from  the  author's  or  editor's  desk,  it  is 
clearly  worth  while  for  every  person  who  is  under  train- 
ing to  become  a  writer  or  a  public  speaker  to  undertake 
all  the  instruction  and  practice  which  may  be  necessary 
to  enable  him  to  put  together  at  least  clearly  and  cor- 
rectly the  facts  and  figures  which  relate  to  any  chosen 
subject.  "We  cannot  all  be  Cobdens,  Gladstones,  or 
Wellses;  but  every  educated  man  can  learn  to  construct 
tables  and  diagrams  which  will  bear  the  test  of  a  fair 
scrutiny  and  liberal  criticism.  To  do  aught  in  the  way. 
of  statistics  at  which  fools  will  not  peck  is,  of  course,  be- 
yond any  man's  power. 

Those  who  have  never  tried  their  hand  at  statistical 
work  will  fail  to  appreciate  the  difficulties  to  be  encoun- 
tered at  the  start  and  the  frequently  recurring  need  of 
going  back  and  beginning  all  over  again.  To  go  to  a 
series  of  extended  tables  with  multitudinous  subdi- 
visions, in  which  a  given  total  is  distributed  among  many 
classes,  and  to  take  therefrom  just  what  you  want,  no 
more,  no  less,  and  no  other, — to  make  sure  that  your 
parts  when  put  together  will  form  a  whole,  and  that  no 
direction  conveyed  by  the  heading  of  a  single  column 
has  been  neglected, — is  a  task  for  which  men  must  be 


THE  8TUDT  OF  STATISTICS.  297 

trained,  and  in  which  they  must  be  practiced,  going  from 
simple  and  easy  examples  to  complex  and  difficult  ones, 
by  patient  steps.  The  great  majority  of  editors  and 
writers  for  the  press,  the  great  majority  of  legislators 
and  public  speakers,  either  fail  in  such  work,  or,  more 
likely,  judiciously  avoid  the  attempt,  even  though  sta- 
tistical matter  altogether  relevant  to  the  subject,  and 
which  might  be  made  most  interesting  to  their  readers 
or  hearers,  lies  on  every  side  of  them.  In  my  long  ex- 
perience in  office  at  Washington,  nothing  struck  me 
more  forcibly  than  the  helplessness  of  Congressmen — 
even,  with  few  exceptions,  the  acutest  and  best  trained — 
to  prepare  the  figures  for  their  own  speeches.  Ko  mat- 
ter how  clear  their  conception  of  the  positions  they 
wished  to  present,  few  of  them  could  readily  and  con- 
fidently resort  to  the  government  publications  at  hand 
for  the  statistical  materials  with  which  to  illustrate  and 
enforce  their  views;  and  the  gratitude  with  which  they 
would  accept  and  acknowledge  some  trifling  assistance 
from  a  well-trained  clerk  was  almost  ludicrous.  I  do 
not  intend  any  disparagement  by  this  statement.  Sta- 
tistics have  a  language  of  their  own,  and  he  who  would 
use  them  must  first  learn  that  language;  and  this  is  as 
yet  taught  scarcely  anywhere. 

A  striking  example  of  the  liability  to  mistakes  which 
constantly  besets  the  compilation  of  statistical  tables  was 
afforded  in  a  book  published,  some  years  ago,  under  the 
title,  "  The  Statistics  of  the  United  States."  The  plan 
of  the  work  was  a  good  one;  such  a  book  was  needed;  but 


298  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

the  author  evidently  had  not  had  the  training  requisite 
safely  to  carry  out  his  scheme  without  falling  into  the 
gravest  errors.  For  instance,  the  work  undertook  to 
present  the  expenditures  of  the  United  States  for  each 
year  since  the  formation  of  the  government.  The 
figures  used  were  taken  directly  from  the  finance  reports 
of  the  Treasury  Department,  and  were  hence  of  the 
highest  official  authority.  Unfortunately,  however, 
the  compiler  went  for  this  purpose  to  the  column  of 
"  Gross  Expenditures,"  and  transferred  the  figures  he 
found  there  into  his  table.  The  result  was  that  for  some 
years  he  was  out  of  the  way  by  several  hundreds  of 
millions  of  dollars,  since  during  these  years  the  Treasury 
issued  large  loans  to  pay  off  other  loans  contracted  dur- 
ing the  war  at  high  rates  of  interest.  Thus,  for  1868 
this  writer  gave  the  expenditures  of  the  government  as 
$1,093,079,655, — a  very  expensive  government  indeed 
for  a  time  of  profound  peace!  The  facts  were  as  follows: 
The  "  net  ordinary  expenditures  "  of  the  government 
that  year  were  $202,947,734;  there  was  paid  from  the 
Treasury,  in  bond  premiums,  $10,813,349;  and,  as 
interest  on  the  national  debt,  $143,781,592;  making  the 
total  expenditures  of  the  government  on  these  accounts, 
$357,542,675.  In  addition,  the  Treasury  redeemed 
bonds  to  the  amount  of  $735,536,980;  and  this,  mainly, 
out  of  the  proceeds  of  fresh  loons,  at  lower  rates  of 
interest.  All  this  vast  sum,  more  than  tmce  the  actual 
expenditures  of  the  government,  even  after  including 
bond  premiums  and  the  current  interest  on  the  public 


THE  STUDY  OF  STATISTICS.  299 

debt,  was  embraced  in  the  financial  statement  of  tbe  last 
year  of  Mr.  Johnson's  administration.  This  mistake 
was  committed  in  connection  with  each  successive  ad- 
ministration, from  Washington's  down. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  blunders  of  such  a  magni- 
tude completely  destroyed  the  prestige  of  the  book,  and 
that,  although  it  was  intended  to  be  issued  from  time  to 
time,  with  the  facts  and  figures  brought  down  to  date,  it 
was  never  heard  of  again. 

Another  example  of  statistics  rendered  actually  delu- 
sive by  the  neglect  of  elementary  considerations  is  found 
in  a  recent  work  on  State  and  Municipal  Taxation,  a 
book  which,  in  many  of  its  views  and  suggestions,  makes 
a  valuable  contribution  to  economic  literature,  but  is, 
statistically,  very  faulty.  Thus,  in  a  "  comparative 
table  "  showing  the  "  principal  receipts,  total  receipts, 
and  total  expenditures  "  of  certain  leading  cities,  !N^ew 
York  is  put  down  for  $73,309,884  of  total  receipts,  in 
1886,  and  for  $71,750,743  of  total  expenditures.  ITow 
the  fact  is,  that  nearly  twenty  millions  alike  of  the  re- 
ceipts and  of  the  expenditures  represent  nothing  but 
temporary  loans,  contracted  and  paid  during  the  year. 
City  taxes  come  in  mainly  during  a  brief  period.  In 
order  to  prevent  the  necessity  of  keeping  a  vast  sum  of 
money  in  the  treasury  for  months  together,  the  govern- 
ment properly  borrows  in  the  "  dry  season,"  and  liqui- 
dates its  obligations  when  the  taxes  set  in  like  a  flood. 
Yet,  in  the  work  referred  to,  this  fact  was  allowed  to 
swell  the  expenditures  of  the  city  more  than  one-third. 


300  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

Had  the  city  treasurer  found  it  expedient  to  borrow  ten 
millions  more  for  one,  two,  or  three  months,  this  would 
have  carried  the  "  expenditures  "  of  New  York  up  to 
eighty-one  milKons! 

Instruction  directly  intended  to  qualify  a  student  to 
use  Statistics,  and  to  compile  tables  with  ease,  confidence, 
and  accuracy,  is  now  given  at  Harvard  University,  Co- 
lumbia College,  the  Institute  of  Technology,  and  prob- 
ably elsewhere.  The  pupil  is  taught  to  look  up  the  data 
relating  to  a  given  subject,  as  these  may  be  found  scat- 
tered through  long  series  of  official  reports;  to  bring  the 
various  statements  together;  to  examine  them  as  to  their 
proper  comparability;  to  test  their  accuracy  by  all  means 
which  may  be  available;  and  to  put  them  together  into 
tables.  The  student  is  further  taught  to  work  out  the 
percentages  involved  and  to  set  one  class  of  facts  into 
relation  with  others;  as,  for  example,  to  compute  the 
ratio  of  valuation,  or  of  expenditure,  or  of  mortality,  to 
each  million  or  each  thousand  of  the  population  con- 
cerned; and,  finally,  to  make  diagrams  or  charts,  which 
shall  exhibit  graphically  the  several  elements,  taken  in 
their  due  proportions,  as  ascertained  by  the  investiga- 
tion. In  none  of  the  higher  institutions,  however,  is 
this  branch  of  study  carried  as  far  as  it  ought  to  be;  nor 
are  all  the  methods  of  instruction  in  this  department  yet 
worked  out  to  their  greatest  efficiency.  Still,  the  good 
work  has  been  well  begun;  and  the  constantly  growing 
appreciation  of  the  ability  to  compile  and  to  use  statistics 
for  the  purposes  of  political,  economic,  and  social  dis- 


THE  STUDY  OF  STATISTICS.  801 

cussion  cannot  fail  to  cause  a  rapid  development  of  this 
feature  of  the  college  course.  The  American  Statis- 
tical Association,  under  the  able  secretaryship  of  Pro- 
fessor Davis  R.  Dewey,  is  doing  much  to  promote  this 
study;  and  it  is  the  desire  of  its  officers  that  its  Journal 
may  become  to  a  considerable  extent  at  once  the  organ 
of  communication,  of  suggestion,  and  of  friendly  criti- 
cism among  the  working  statisticians  of  the  country,  and 
the  repository  of  the  best  essays  in  this  line  from  our 
leading  colleges  and  universities;  affording,  in  the  latter 
way,  a  great  impulse  to  the  study  of  statistics  in  connec- 
tion with  the  academic  pursuit  of  history  and  economics. 
The  scope  of  this  paper  does  not  include  a  discussion 
of  the  subjects  and  the  order  of  studies  designed  to  give 
the  investigator  the  power  to  discover  statistically  the 
laws  which  govern  the  action  of  social  and  economic 
forces.  Such  a  course  would  necessarily  be  long  and 
severe.  For  the  best  results  it  should  embrace  the 
highest  mathematics  of  our  American  colleges,  and 
should  be  largely  directed  to  the  development  of  the  bio- 
logical sense.  The  number  of  those  who,  otherwise  than 
as  a  means  of  mental  training,  would  have  occasion  to 
undertake  such  a  course,  would  necessarily  be  small. 
There  is  reason  to  wish  that  all  citizens,  from  thq  highest 
to  the  lowest,  might  undergo  so  much  of  training  in  sta- 
tistics as  would  enable  them  to  detect  the  errors  lurking 
in  quantitative  statements  regarding  social  and  economic 
matters  which  may  be  addressed  to  them  as  voters  or  as 
critics  of  public  policies.     Comparatively  few  of  these, 


302  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

however,  would  ever  have  occasion  to  prepare  such  state- 
ments for  themselves,  and  would  thus  have  use  for  the 
special  faculty  which  is  required  for  the  compilation  of 
statistical  tables  and  diagrams.  Far  smaller  still  will  be 
the  numbers  of  those  whose  natural  endowments  and 
whose  chosen  pursuits  would  justify  the  long  and  labori- 
ous training,  the  patient  practice,  and  the  acquisition  of 
the  large  and  various  learning,  which  alone  can  qualify 
the  student  of  history,  of  sociology,  or  of  political 
economy  confidently  and  surely  to  educe  from  thou- 
sands of  pages  closely  packed  with  figures  some  hitherto 
unsuspected  law  of  human  life  or  conduct. 


"NORMAL  TRAINING  IN  WOMEN'S 

COLLEGES 

1892 


Fbosi  the  Edncationai  Review,  November,  1898. 


NORMAL  TRAINING  IN  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES. 

It  is  now  a  little  more  than  twenty-five  years  since  a 
college  for  women  was  founded  in  the  United  States.^ 
From  the  first  the  new  enterprise  attained  a  high  degree 
of  success,  whether  as  measured  by  popular  appreciation 
or  as  tested  by  the  strictest  scrutiny  of  its  results ;  and  in 
the  face  of  the  fast-increasing  demands  of  the  older  col- 
leges, and  in  spite  of  skepticism  and  incredulity,  the  edu- 
cational system  of  the  United  States  has  been  rapidly 
and  strongly  developed  along  the  line  thus  taken. 
Without  considering  the  coeducational  institutions  at 
the  West  and  South,  we  already  have  a  number  of  col- 
leges for  women  alone,  well  endowed  and  equipped, 
largely  attended  and  of  excellent  repute  for  scholarship. 
The  American  people  may  thus  be  said  to  have  had  a 
quarter-century's  experience,  upon  a  pretty  wide  scale, 
of  these  educational  advantages.  The  length  of  that 
period  has  afforded  opportunity  for  ascertaining  what- 
ever defects  and  limitations  may  have  existed  in  this  type 
of  institution  as  first  founded ;  and  its  close  offers  an  ap- 
propriate occasion  for  inquiring  whether  important 
alterations  require  to  be  made,  in  the  interest  of  the 
pupils  especially  concerned,  or  in  the  interest  of  the  gen- 
eral community. 

'  Vassar  College,  founded  in  1861 ;  opened  in  1865. — Ed. 

305 


306  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

Since  the  first  colleges  for  women  were  founded,  great 
changes,  economic  and  social,  peculiarly  affecting  the 
condition  of  women,  have  taken  place  in  the  life  of  our 
people.  Do  these  changes  require  any  considerable 
alteration  in  the  general  scheme  of  education  for  the 
young  women  of  America — any  alteration,  that  is, 
farther  than  would  be  involved  in  the  natural  develop- 
ment of  that  scheme  according  to  its  original  idea,  and  in 
the  general,  gradual  movement  of  college  discipline  and 
training  for  students  of  either  sex  indifferently? 
Changes  have,  indeed,  been  seen  to  be  required,  and 
some  of  them  have  been  more  or  less  rapidly  effected  in 
colleges  for  women  and  in  colleges  for  men ;  but  has  any 
reason  for  change  appeared  which  peculiarly  affects  the 
former  class? 

And,  first,  what  was  the  scheme  of  education  adopted 
in  the  several  institutions  of  this  kind  which  came  into 
existence  during  the  period  in  question?  Speaking  gen- 
erally, it  was  nearly  identical  with  that  which  had  long 
been  tried  and  approved  in  the  education  of  young  men. 
So  far  is  this  true  that  it  has  become  a  familiar  claim, 
on  the  part  of  the  more  ambitious  of  the  new  colleges, 
that  their  curriculum  is  in  all  respects  coextensive  and 
equally  difficult  with  that  of  men's  colleges. 

I  shall  not  pause  to  inquire  whether  this  object  was  in 
itself  desirable;  whether  young  women  should  be  called 
upon  to  do  in  four  years  all  that  young  men  may  be  re- 
quired to  do  in  the  same  time ;  whether  exceptional  con- 
sideration be  not  due  to  the  greater  delicacy,  sensitive- 


NORMAL  TRAINING  IN  WOMEN'S  COLLEQES.     307 

ness,  and  liability  to  nervous  derangement  on  the  part 
of  the  female  sex.  I  shall  not  even  stop  to  ask  whether 
this  claim  was  ever,  anywhere,  made  good  except  in  the 
case  of  highly  selected  bodies  of  young  women;  or 
whether,  through  conscious  or  unconscious  relaxations 
of  the  nominal  requirements,  the  work  exacted,  in  even 
the  most  advanced  of  the  women's  colleges,  has  not,  in 
fact,  mercifully  fallen  somewhat  below  a  full  equivalent 
of  that  done  in  the  other  class  of  institutions.  I  desire 
here  only  to  note  the  fact  of  such  a  claim  having  been 
freely  and  widely  made,  as  corroborating  the  statement 
that,  in  general,  the  scheme  of  education  for  women 
adopted  twenty-five  or  twenty  years  ago,  was  substan- 
tially the  same  as  had  been  approved  for  the  training  of 
young  men. 

One  exception,  indeed,  requires  to  be  taken  to  the 
assertion  that  the  curriculum  of  the  new  institutions  was 
meant  to  be,  alike  in  substance  and  in  form,  identical 
with  the  traditional  curriculum  of  the  American  college. 
This  exception  relates  to  the  studies  and  exercises  having 
reference  to  the  preparation  of  the  student  for  public 
speaking.  But  even  this  modification  was  in  a  direc- 
tion already  clearly  indicated  among  the  men's  colleges 
themselves  by  the  gradual  decay  and  disuse  of  declama- 
tion and  debate.  This  has  steadily  gone  forward  since 
that  time,  until  now,  in  the  most  advanced  of  the  older 
institutions,  preparation  for  public  speaking,  and  even 
for  public  writing,  is  given  but  little  attention.  So  we 
may  fairly  say  that,  in  the  most  important  respect  of 


308  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

their  original  difference,  the  colleges  for  men  have  come 
to  the  colleges  for  women. 

The  changes  which  I  have  referred  to  as  occur- 
ring peculiarly  to  affect  the  condition  of  women, 
within  the  period  since  these  colleges  were  founded, 
are: 

First,  the  greater  call  for  women  to  interest  them- 
selves in  public  affairs;  and 

Secondly,  the  procrastination  of  marriage  and  the  re- 
striction of  the  marrying  class,  throwing  upon  women, 
in  a  degree  before  unknown,  the  necessity  of  independ- 
ent self-support. 

In  speaking  of  the  greater  call  for  women  to  take  part 
in  public  affairs,  I  have  no  reference  to  the  current  agi- 
tation for  female  suffrage.  Altogether  irrespective  of 
this  is  the  peremptory  demand  upon  the  educated  mem- 
bers of  that  sex,  in  these  later  days,  to  concern  them- 
selves with  matters  once  wholly  managed  by  men.  In 
addition  to  the  rapidly  growing  freedom  with  which 
women  are  admitted  to  school  boards  and  committees, 
and  to  a  participation  in  the  management  of  public  insti- 
tutions of  charity  and  beneficence,  one  has  only  to  look 
about  him,  in  his  own  town  or  city,  and  see  what  the 
educated  women  of  the  community  are  doing;  one  has, 
indeed,  only  to  peer  (by  permission,  of  course)  into  the 
engagement  book  of  his  wife,  sister,  or  daughter,  to  get 
a  somewhat  startling  view  of  the  enlarged  activity  of  the 
woman  of  to-day,  making  a  demand  upon  her,  if  those 
duties  are  to  be  well  performed,  for  more  training  and 


NORMAL  TRAINING  IN  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES.     309 

an  ampler  equipment  upon  that  side  than  was  required, 
or  was  possible,  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago. 

But  this  want  lias  not  been  left  tbus  long  to  be  sup- 
plied. Men's  colleges  and  women's  colleges  together 
have  been  applying  themselves,  during  the  whole  of  the 
period  in  question,  to  do  that  which  will  largely  meet 
this  need  of  the  times.  Not,  indeed,  that  the  colleges, 
professedly,  or  perhaps  even  consciously,  have  made  any 
considerable  changes  in  their  curriclum  in  the  interest  of 
a  better  preparation  of  either  women  or  men  for  public 
affairs.  The  changes  in  this  direction  have  been  made 
because  the  tendency  in  education,  upon  purely  educa- 
tional grounds,  has,  of  recent  years,  set  strongly  and 
steadily  towards  those  studies  and  exercises  which 
peculiarly  qualify  the  student  for  social  and  political 
duties. 

The  assertion  that  the  changes  in  the  curriculum  of 
the  American  college  which  have  so  fortunately  met  the 
freshly  developed  want  in  education  on  woman's  side, 
have  not  been  due  to  such  a  purpose,  or  even  to  an  un- 
conscious recognition  of  the  new  need,  may  perhaps  be 
questioned;  but  I  believe  it  to  be  true.  Even  in  men's 
colleges  the  rapid  extension  during  the  past  twenty 
years, — one  might  almost  say  the  first  introduction  within 
that  period,— of  history,  economics,  and  statistics,  has  not 
come  from  the  desire  on  the  part  of  teachers  and  admin- 
istrators to  fit  their  pupils  better  for  public  duties.  It 
has  taken  place  because  history,  economics,  and  statistics 
had,  in  the  course  of  educational  development,  become 


310  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

studies  which  would  crowd  themselves  into  the  colleges, 
whether  or  no;  which  could  no  longer  be  kept  out; 
which  made  an  imperative  demand  for  room  in  every 
institution  devoted  to  the  liberal  arts.  Before  that 
time  those  studies,  as  known  in  the  United  States,  had 
not  their  developed  methods — had  not  their  qualified 
teachers.  Those  methods  were  not  developed,  those 
teachers  were  not  trained,  to  fit  either  American  women 
or  American  men  for  the  social  and  political  life  of  their 
country.  In  fact,  those  methods  were  not  developed, 
those  teachers  were  not  trained,  here  in  America  at  all. 
It  was  abroad,  in  Germany,  where  those  studies  were 
pursued  as  a  necessary  part  of  a  great  and  comprehensive 
scheme  of  intellectual  cultivation,  that  this  was  done. 

History,  economics,  and  statistics  become  college 
studies  in  America,  not  because  the  want  of  them  was 
consciously  felt  more  than  at  any  previous  time  in  our 
history,  not  at  all  because  the  need  of  them  had  then  first 
specially  appeared  in  the  education  of  women,  but  be- 
cause those  studies  had,  under  altogether  other  and  for- 
eign impulses,  assumed  an  educational  character  which 
made  it  impossible  to  keep  them  out  of  any  institution 
assuming  to  offer  a  liberal  training,  and  because  a  host 
of  young  Americans,  taught  in  the  universities  of  Ger- 
many, were  returning  to  their  native  land  as  the  mis- 
sionaries of  the  new  cult. 

But  whether  we  adopt  or  reject  this  view  of  the  cause 
of  the  rapid  rise  and  growth  of  the  historical  and  politi- 
cal sciences  in  our  institutions  of  learning  generally,  it 


NORMAL  TRAINING  IN  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES.     311 

certainly  cannot  be  claimed  that  the  result  was  in  any 
degree  due  to  the  newly  developed  want  of  women's  col- 
leges. ^Nevertheless,  that  want,  thus  suddenly  occur- 
ring, has  been  most  fortunately  supplied.  Although 
history,  economics,  and  statistics  first  came  into  America 
through  the  colleges  for  men,  they  rapidly  made  their 
way  into  the  women's  colleges,  so  that  now,  in  the  most 
advanced  of  these,  the  new  studies  are  cultivated  almost 
as  assiduously  as  in  the  institutions  for  the  other  sex; 
and  the  catalogues  of  women's  colleges  show  an  increas- 
ing disposition  towards  the  further  recognition  of  the 
historical  and  political  sciences  as  instruments  of  liberal 
culture. 

I  think  we  may  conclude,  then,  that  the  change  upon 
what  we  may  call  the  political  side,  in  the  condition  of 
American  women,  does  not  call  for  any  important  altera- 
tion of  the  curriculum,  other  than  has  been  involved,  to 
use  my  own  phrase,  "  in  the  natural  development  of  the 
scheme  according  to  its  original  idea,  or  in  the  general 
gradual  development  of  college  discipline  and  training 
for  the  students  of  either  sex  indifferently."  The  re- 
quired modification  has,  in  fact,  already  taken  place,  not 
at  all  with  reference  to  the  special  needs  of  American 
women,  but  under  the  general  educational  impulse  of 
the  age. 

It  is  a  more  serious  and  difficult  question,  whether  the 
other  change  which  has  been  indicated  as  affecting  the 
condition  of  women,  through  the  procrastination  of  mar- 
riage and  the  restriction  of  the  marrying  class,  especially 


312  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

among  the  educated  and  cultivated  portion  of  the  com- 
munity, throwing  upon  women,  in  a  degree  never  before 
known,  the  necessity  of  independent  self-support,  does 
not  call  for  extensive  modifications  of  the  curriculum 
as  established  when  these  colleges  were  instituted.  The 
reasonable  expectations,  the  usual  prospects  for  life  with 
which  young  women  went  to  college  when  that  oppor- 
tunity was  first  offered  them,  were  widely  different  from 
what  they  now  are.  !Rot  only  is  the  time  of  marriage 
long  procrastinated,  not  only  is  the  proportion  of  celi- 
bates increasing  throughout  the  total  population,  but 
among  the  educated  and  cultivated  classes  these  ten- 
dencies are  felt  with  a  force  which  is  rapidly  changing 
our  social  ideas  in  many  particulars,  and  is  fast  bringing 
in  new  economic  conditions. 

Here  again,  however,  a  modification  of  the  college 
curriculum,  under  the  general  educational  influence  of 
the  age,  and  not  at  all  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  the 
newly  developed  need  in  woman's  training,  has  actually, 
to  a  considerable  extent,  taken  place.  Chemistry  and 
physics  have  become  important  studies  at  the  leading 
colleges  for  men  during  the  past  ten  or  fifteen  years, 
not  because  it  was  expected  that  the  students  would  use 
these  sciences  professionally,  but  because  these  sciences 
had  assumed  an  importance,  educationally,  which  would 
not  allow  them  to  be  longer  kept  out,  or,  if  admitted,  to 
be  confined  to  the  petty  proportions  of  thirty  years  ago. 
For  the  same  reason,  and  no  other,  chemistry  and 
physics  have  extended  themselves  rapidly  to  women's 


NORMAL  TRAINING  IN  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES.     313 

colleges,  and  are  every  year  asserting  themselves  more 
and  more  in  the  curriculum.  Here  again  we  have  a 
development  of  women's  colleges  which  was  eminently 
opportune,  although  it  took  place  without  reference  to 
the  changes  in  the  condition  of  women  which  made  such 
a  modification  of  the  traditional  courses  peculiarly  con- 
ducive to  the  training  of  women  for  independent  mainte- 
nance. 

The  question  I  have  now  to  ask  is:  Whether  any 
change  not  in  the  nature  of  a  development  of  the  origi- 
nal scheme  of  women's  colleges  and  not  shared  by  the 
colleges  for  men,  requires  to  be  brought  about,  in  view 
of  the  increasing  neod  which  women  have,  in  these  days, 
for  self-support.  The  subject  is  one  regarding  which 
something  might  doubtless  be  said  upon  both  sides;  yet 
for  myself  I  strongly  hold  to  the  opinion  that,  with  a 
single  important  exception  to  be  hereafter  noted,  those 
who  are  charged  with  the  administration  of  the  higher 
institutions  of  learning  for  women  should  continue  to 
interest  themselves  solely  in  the  question:  What  studies 
and  exercises  will  conduce  most  to  sound  mental  dis- 
cipline, to  general  culture,  and  to  the  acquisition  of  a 
considerable  body  of  correct  information  upon  sub- 
jects of  political,  social,  and  domestic  importance?  not 
troubling  themselves  at  all  to  give  their  pupils  industrial 
arts,  or  to  prepare  them  in  any  way  specially  and  tech- 
nically to  enter  "  the  market  for  labor."  I  heartily  be- 
lieve that,  with  the  single  possible  exception  to  be  noted, 
the  studies  and  exercises  prescribed  for  young  women, 


314  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

in  their  college  courses,  should  be  purely  educational; 
and  that,  at  least,  the  time  has  not  yet  come  when  the 
conductors  of  these  institutions  are  called  upon  to  ask 
what  studies  and  exercises  will  best  fit  young  women  for 
any  special  line  of  remunerative  work. 

My  reasons  for  believing  that  the  colleges  for  women 
should,  at  least  in  the  present  and  the  immediate  future, 
confine  themselves  to  the  proper  college  function  of 
mental  discipline  and  mental  development,  are  as 
follows: 

First:  Because  the  presumption  is  still  happily  in 
favor  of  the  ultimate  devotion  of  woman's  powers  and 
faculties  to  domestic  life  and  duties,  in  which  general 
training  will  count  for  much,  and  special  training  for 
but  little. 

Secondly :  Because  the  occupations  of  a  business  char- 
acter which  are  as  yet  freely  opened  to  that  sex  are  gen- 
erally those  in  which  woman's  tact,  dexterity,  and  quick- 
ness of  apprehension  Will  enable  her  most  readily  to  dis- 
pense with  previous  special  or  technical  preparation,  andt 
in  which,  consequently,  general  training  will  tell  to  the 
utmost. 

Thirdly:  For  the  comparatively  few  women  who 
have  a  strong  "  call "  to  technical  professions  of  a 
severely  scientific  character,  opportunities  are  already 
provided  at  several  institutions  of  high  grade  which  ad- 
mit the  members  of  both  sexes,  without  discrimination. 

Fourthly:  For  certain  of  the  higher  professions,  if  I 
may  venture  to  call  them  so,  in  which  women  take  a  part 


NORMAL  TRAINING  IN  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES.     315 

equal,  if  not  superior,  to  that  taken  by  men,  opportuni- 
ties for  training  are  now  afforded  in  special  schools, 
which  exist  in  great  number  and  in  great  variety,  often 
fully  equipped  and  well  administered.  To  students,  for 
example,  of  music,  drawing,  painting,  and,  under  my 
breath  be  it  spoken,  of  the  drama,  this  country  presents 
advantages  as  great  as  could  reasonably  be  expected  in  a 
civilization  as  new  as  ours.  If  more  is  to  be  looked  for, 
it  must  be  through  the  progressive  improvement  of  these 
special  native  schools  or  through  foreign  residence  and 
study. 

I  now  come  to  the  one  important  exception,  already 
several  times  intimated,  which,  in  my  opinion,  requires 
to  be  made  to  the  principle  that  the  colleges  for  women 
should  still  remain,  as  they  have  been  in  the  past,  non- 
professional, wholly  educational.  That  exception  re- 
lates to  the  training  of  teachers.  Already  the  leading 
colleges  and  universities  for  men  are  turning  their  atten- 
tion to  this  urgent  need  of  the  times  and  are  establishing 
chairs  of  pedagogy  for  the  instruction  of  their  under- 
graduates in  the  theory  and  history  of  teaching.  I  be- 
lieve that  the  colleges  for  women  should  go  still  further 
in  this  direction,  so  that  each  one  of  them  shall  become, 
in  a  high  sense,  a  normal  school. 

The  profession  of  the  teacher  is  not  only  of  vital  im- 
portance to  the  community,  it  is  that  one  of  all  the  larger 
professions  which  is  mainly  relinquished,  by  general 
consent,  to  women.  To  fill  the  vacancies  in  the  ranks 
of  the  teaching  profession,  occasioned  by  all  causes,  and 


316  COLLEGE  PB0BLEM3. 

to  supply  the  additional  assistants  required  by  the 
growth  of  the  country,  at  least  twenty  thousand  young 
women  should  each  year  present  themselves  as  qualified 
to  undertake  these  onerous  and  responsible  duties.  To 
meet  this  tremendous  demand,  the  so-called  normal 
schools  are  striving  with  the  best  of  their  powers;  but 
they  cannot  do  all  that  is  required,  while  much  that 
they  do  is  less  than  well  done.  Held  down,  as  they  are, 
by  the  presence  of  large  numbers  of  pupils  who  are  not 
even  graduates  of  high  schools  and  obliged  to  devote  no 
small  part  of  the  time  and  strength  of  their  staff  to  ele- 
mentary instruction,  not  in  the  teaching  art,  but  in  the 
subject-matter  of  what  is  to  be  taught,  these  schools  can- 
not do  themselves  or  their  better  pupils  justice;  and 
many  of  those  whom  they  graduate  are  accepted  by- 
school  boards  only  because  the  supply  is  so  painfully 
inadequate.  The  number  of  teachers  actively  de- 
manded for  giving  instruction  in  the  higher  branches  of 
learning  in  the  secondary  schools  of  the  country,  and  for 
bringing  inspiration  into  the  more  fortunately  circum- 
stanced grammar  schools,  would  take  up  every  year  more 
than  all  the  graduates  of  all  our  women's  colleges. 

I  offer,  then,  this  plea  for  normal  instruction  and 
training  in  all  colleges  for  women.  The  need  of  the 
country  is  so  urgent  that  some  sacrifice  of  the  strictly 
educational  character  of  these  institutions  might  prop- 
erly be  submitted  to,  were  that  necessary,  in  order  to 
secure  a  higher  professional  result  in  a  department  of 
public  service  so  peculiarly  woman's  own  and  so  vitally 


NORMAL  TRAINING  IN  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES.     317 

important  to  the  welfare  of  the  people.  But,  in  fact, 
I  do  not  believe  that  the  introduction  of  the  studies  and 
exercises  proper  to  this  object  would  impair — on  the  con- 
trary, I  believe  it  would  greatly  improve  and  highly 
exalt,  the  true  educational  work  of  these  institutions. 

I  would  not  have  the  colleges  for  women  teach  the 
mere  arts  of  the  pedagogue,  or  undertake  to  anticipate 
the  necessary  work  of  experience.  But  I  would  have 
the  history  and  the  philosophy  of  education  made  prime 
subjects  of  study.  I  would  have  the  psychology  of 
teaching  taught.  I  would  have  the  mind,  in  its  powers 
of  perception,  observation,  reflection,  and  expression 
studied  as  objectively  and  as  scientifically  as  specimens 
in  natural  history  are  studied  in  the  classroom  and  the 
laboratory.  The  order  of  development  of  the  human 
faculties,  the  child's  way  of  observing,  the  child's  way 
of  thinking  when  untaught  and  untrained,  the  ways  in 
which  the  child  may  be  interested  and  drawn  out  of  him- 
self— these  should  be  the  matter  of  eager,  interested  in- 
vestigation. Surely,  they  are  as  well  worthy  to  be  the 
subjects  of  study  as  are  the  processes  of  vegetable  or 
animal  growth,  as  the  order  in  which  the  leaves  are  set 
upon  the  stem,  or  as  the  mechanism  of  the  human  body. 

The  art  of  the  teacher,  the  art  of  simple  exposition 
and  familiar  illustration,  the  art  of  putting  questions 
and  stimulating  thought — this  art  should  be  both 
studied  and  practiced,  practiced  and  studied,  year  by 
year.  I  would  have  the  pupils  frequently  called  to 
assume,  for  a  brief  space,  the  responsibilities  of  instruc- 


318  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

tion.  I  would  have  classes  formed  to  investigate  prob- 
lems in  education,  starting  questions,  stating  proposi- 
tions, adducing  facts,  discussing  principles,  consulting 
authorities,  answering  objections,  under  the  guidance  of 
teachers  who  shall  have  their  own  minds  directed  upon 
the  end  of  training  their  scholars  not  merely  to  com- 
unicate  thought,  but  to  create  it. 

Does  it  seem  that  the  dedication  to  such  uses  of  a 
portion  of  the  time  at  the  command  of  the  faculty  would, 
in  the  result,  interfere  with  the  educational  character 
of  the  curriculum?  Would  not  the  remainder  of  the 
four  years'  course  be  worth,  even  for  mere  acquisition 
alone,  as  much  as  the  whole  formerly  was?  I  surely 
think  so.  I  believe  that  what  has  been  suggested  is  the 
very  thing  most  needed  to  give  its  best  effect  to  the 
studies  in  classics,  philosophy,  mathematics,  natural 
science,  history,  and  politics,  which  make  up  the  tradi- 
tional courses  of  our  colleges. 

That  such  a  training  would  fit  the  graduates  of 
women's  colleges  to  take  up  the  work  of  the  teacher 
with  great  advantage,  no  one  will  question.  They 
might  at  first  be  found  to  be,  in  mere  smartness,  glib- 
ness,  self-confidence,  and  ease  of  bearing,  behind  the 
graduates  of  the  typical  normal  school;  but  their 
broader  scholarship  and  higher  culture  would  qualify 
them,  in  a  far  greater  degree,  to  reap  the  fruits  of 
experience,  and  they  could  not  fail,  after  a  brief  period 
of  apprenticeship,  to  take  their  place  among  the  most 
useful  members  of  the  profession. 


NORMAL  TBAmma  IN  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES.     319 

But  what  of  those  who  are  destined  not  to  enter  the 
ranks  of  that  profession,  but  are  to  find  their  life's  work 
at  home,  in  the  domestic  circle?  I^eed  the  question  be 
asked?  Could  any  nobler  preparation  for  the  duties 
of  wife  and  mother  be  devised  than  that  which  I  have 
thus  outlined?  Surely,  this  part  of  the  college  training 
would  never  run  to  waste.  The  Latin  and  Greek  might 
be  unused  and  soon  forgotten;  but  the  hearts  and  minds 
of  the  next  generation  would  be  inexpressibly  benefited 
by  the  gracious  fruits  of  studies  and  exercises  such  as 
these. 


THE  SECONDARY  SCHOOLS  AND 
HIGHER  EDUCATION 

1894 


A  Discussion  of  thk  Question  :  How  Hat  Closkb 
Abticulation  bktwekn  thk  Skcondart  Schools  and 
HiQHEB  Institutions  be  Secured  ?  at  the  Ninth  An- 
nual Meeting  op  the  New  England  Association  of 
Collkges  and  Pbkpabatort  Schools,  Octobeb  12, 1894. 
From  the  School  Review,  Decem beb,  1894. 


THE  SECONDAEY  SCHOOLS  AND  HIGHER 
EDUCATION. 

Any  part  I  may  take  in  the  deliberations  of  this  meet- 
ing ought  to  be  a  grateful  one — grateful  to  me,  because, 
as  a  representative  of  scientific  and  technical  schools,  I 
have  only  to  give  assent  to  the  fundamental  propositions 
of  Dr.  Huling;  ^  grateful  to  you,  because  my  simple  con- 
tribution will  not  long  detain  you. 

So  far  as  I  am  aware,  there  can  be  no  occasion  for 
the  scientific  and  technical  schools  of  this  country  to 
object  to  any  of  Dr.  Huling's  proposals.  Inasmuch  as 
those  schools  to-day  require  no  more  than  is  provided 
for  in  at  least  one  of  the  courses  offered  by  the  Com- 
mittee of  Ten,^  they  can  possibly  have  no  adverse  inter- 
est. The  report  does  not  call  upon  us  to  make  any  con- 
cessions whatsoever.  Any  scientific  school  in  the  land 
would  be  quite  content  to  have  its  students  bring  with 
them  as  much  as  is  embraced  in  the  course  to  which  I 
refer.  Therefore,  so  far  as  I  am  to  speak  for  the  scien- 
tific and  technical  schools,  there  can  be  no  reason  for 
doubt  or  hesitation  in  giving  support  to  the  propositions 
of  the  Committee.     Indeed,  so  far  as  my  constituency 

'  The  question  under  discussion  had  been  presented  by  Dr.  Ray 
Greene  Huling,  of  Cambridge,  Massachusetts. — Ed. 

» In  its  valuable  report  (1893)  to  the  National  Educational  Associa- 
tion.— Ed. 

333 


324  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

is  concerned,  the  changes  proposed  by  the  Committee 
would  be  all  clear  gain. 

This  completes  all  I  have  to  offer  as  a  representative 
of  scientific  and  technical  schools;  but,  if  I  might  ven- 
ture to  refer  for  a  moment  to  the  position  of  the  classical 
colleges,  I  must  confess  that  I  have  a  great  deal  of  sym- 
pathy with  that  view  of  the  English  high  school  which 
is  presented  in  the  extract  quoted  by  Dr.  Huling.  I 
believe  in  the  free  development  of  the  high  school  in 
this  country,  without  constraint  from  the  outside,  and 
without  any  concession  to  either  the  colleges  or  the 
technical  schools.  I  believe  that  the  high  schools  should 
not  be  asked  to  do  anything  more  than  what  would  be 
for  their  own  best  development  as  schools  a  great 
majority  of  whose  pupils  are  to  go  directly  out  into 
practical  life  without  further  advantages  of  education. 
I  believe  that  the  English  high  schools  were  created  for 
the  benefit  of  pupils  of  this  class;  and  that  they  should 
go  steadily  forward  upon  that  line,  simply  asking  how 
they  can  best  serve  the  needs  of  this  portion  of  the  com- 
munity, making  no  surrender  and  no  concessions  to  the 
wishes  or  the  interests  of  the  colleges,  on  the  one  hand, 
or  of  the  scientific  and  technical  schools  on  the  other. 
The  colleges  have,  and  for  a  long  time  have  had,  com- 
plete control  of  the  endowed  academies  and  the  public 
Latin  schools.  If  the  colleges  want  any  more  than  this 
for  their  own  purposes,  let  them  provide  it.  If,  again, 
the  scientific  schools  need  any  more  or  any  different 
preparation  from  that  which  the  high  schools  would 


8EC0NDABT  SCHOOLS  AND  HIGHER  EDUCATION.     325 

give,  from  their  own  point  of  view  and  for  their  own 
proper  purposes,  then  let  the  scientific  and  technical 
schools  provide  it  for  themselves.  The  English  high 
school  has  its  own  definite,  important  work  to  do  in  the 
American  system  of  education,  which  is  to  give  the  best 
possible  courses  of  instruction  to  young  people,  between 
fourteen  or  fifteen  and  eighteen  or  nineteen  years  of 
age,  who  are  not  able  to  carry  their  studies  on  into  the 
college  or  into  the  scientific  or  technical  school.  This 
is  the  proper  work  of  the  English  high  schools;  and  those 
who  are  charged  with  the  conduct  of  such  schools  should 
allow  nothing  to  divert  them  from  that  object.  If  the 
instruction  given  by  the  English  high  school,  according 
to  its  own  point  of  view,  with  reference  to  its  own  pur- 
poses, does  not  precisely  fit  its  graduates  for  the  classical 
college,  then  I  say  the  college  must  come  to  the  high 
school,  and  not  the  high  school  to  the  college.  The 
desired  adjustment  must  come  through  concession  from 
the  colleges,  and  not  by  surrender  on  the  part  of  high 
schools. 

The  foregoing  remarks  might  seem  from  their  tone  to 
be  antagonistic  to  the  report  of  the  Committee  of  Ten 
and  to  the  propositions  of  Dr.  Huling;  but,  in  fact,  they 
are  not  so  intended.  The  colleges  are  now  doing  just 
this  very  thing.  They  are  coming  to  the  English  high 
school,  and  they  are  coming  fast,  climbing  over  the 
fences  and  breaking  through  the  hedges  to  get  as  quickly 
as  possible  upon  the  ground  of  an  education  which  omits 
the  once  universal  requirement  of  Latin  and  Greek  for 


326  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

all  college  students  and  through  practically  the  whole 
college  course.  The  surrender  has  been  on  the  part  of 
the  colleges  and  not  on  the  part  of  the  high  schools;  and 
in  the  readjustments  which  will  properly  follow  that 
surrender  the  needs  and  the  capabilities  of  high  schools 
should  be  kept  carefully  in  mind,  rather  than  the  needs 
and  the  convenience  of  the  colleges. 

Having  long  and  strongly  held  this  view  of  the  mis- 
sion of  the  English  high  school  in  our  educational 
economy,  I  would  not  have  those  who  control  these 
schools  give  up  one  jot  or  tittle  of  what  is  for  the  good 
of  the  high  schools  themselves,  according  to  their  orig- 
inal idea,  or  divert  in  any  degree  the  instruction  given  in 
such  schools  from  the  direction  which  will  best  serve 
those  who  are  to  end  their  school  life  at  that  point.  But 
it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  the  report  of  the  Committee 
of  Ten  and  the  suggestions  and  propositions  of  Dr.  Hu- 
ling  ask  anything  of  the  high  schools  other  than  is  for 
their  own  good,  according  to  their  original  purposes.  On 
the  contrary,  it  appears  to  me  that  the  programmes  of  the 
Committee  of  Ten  are  such  that  they  might  have  been 
drawn  up  solely  for  the  good  of  the  English  high  schools 
themselves,  and  not  at  all  with  reference  to  the  needs 
of  colleges  and  scientific  schools.  I  would  not  say  that, 
in  the  point  of  the  amount  of  work  required,  those  pro- 
grammes may  not  transcend  the  present  capabilities  of 
the  less  favored  schools;  but,  subject  to  this  caution,  I 
think  that  the  most  ardent  supporter  of  the  traditional 
English  high  school  may  cheerfully  and  cordially  accept 


SECONDARY  SCHOOLS  AND  HIGHEB  ED UCATION.     327 

those  programmes  as  of  the  nature  of  an  enlargement 
and  improvement  of  the  high  school,  in  its  own  interest 
alone. 

Referring  for  a  moment  to  the  question  of  admission 
to  colleges  and  scientific  schools  by  certificate,  which 
was  brought  up  by  Dr.  Huling,  I  would  say  that,  in  my 
judgment,  the  general  movement  in  this  direction  is  a 
fortunate  one,  and  is  likely  to  be  carried  still  further  to 
the  advantage  both  of  the  college  or  scientific  school  and 
of  the  preparatory  school,  whether  endowed  academy, 
Latin  school,  or  English  high  school.  But  it  does  not 
seem  to  me  that  there  should  be  any  effort  to  force  this 
matter.  The  result  will  be  better  accomplished  in  the 
end  if  it  is  brought  about  gradually,  and,  indeed,  by 
piecemeal,  here  a  little  and  there  a  little,  each  individual 
college  or  scientific  school  proceeding  by  negotiation 
with  its  own  special  "  feeders  "  and  shaping  its  course 
according  to  its  own  particular  needs.  Indeed,  it  is 
doubtful  whether  the  system  of  admission  by  certificate 
will  ever  be  made  universal.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  some 
colleges  can  admit  students  by  certificate  from  some  pre- 
paratory schools.  It  is  perhaps  safe  to  say  that  some 
colleges  could  safely  admit  by  certificate  from  all  pre- 
paratory schools.  It  is  possible  that  all  colleges  might 
admit  by  certificate  from  some  preparatory  schools.  But 
to  say  that  all  preparatory  colleges  could  admit  students 
by  certificate  from  all  preparatory  schools,  is  going  a 
great  deal  further  than  the  results  of  experience  justify. 

Regarding  the  complaints,  cited  by  Dr.  Huling,  which 


828  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

impeach  the  results  of  examinations  for  admission  to 
college,  I  would  like  to  say  a  word. 

It  seems  to  me  that  an  altogether  false  idea  obtains 
respecting  the  proper  significance  and  effect  of  these  ex- 
aminations. It  appears  to  be  a  common  notion  that  the 
successful  passing  of  entrance  examinations  not  only 
vests  in  an  applicant  the  right  to  enter  the  school  or  col- 
lege, but  also  the  right  not  to  have  any  other  applicant, 
who  has  not  passed  the  examinations,  admitted.  Hence, 
we  have  anonymous  examinations,  the  candidates  being 
known  only  by  numbers  assigned  to  them  individually, 
with  a  hard-and-fast  rule  that  those  who  pass  the  exam- 
inations with  a  certain  degree  of  success  shall  be  per- 
mitted to  enter,  and  that  all  who  fall  short  of  that  point 
shall  be  rejected. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  view  of  the  significance  and 
effect  of  examinations  is  altogether  wrong.  The  prime 
object  of  holding  entrance  examinations  is  to  save  young 
men  from  beginning  courses  in  which  they  would  prob- 
ably fail  through  lack  of  preparation.  The  examina- 
tion is  primarily  and  principally,  not  for  the  sake  of  the 
school  or  college,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  applicant;  that 
he  may  not  suffer  disappointment;  that  he  may  not  lose 
his  time  and  money  in  a  futile  attempt  to  carry  on 
courses  which  are  beyond  his  ability.  A  school  or  col- 
lege, on  its  part,  would  suffer  no  particular  harm  by 
having  a  certain  number  of  ill-prepared  students  enter 
its  first  class.  It  is  the  students  themselves  who  would 
suffer;  and  it  is  for  their  sake  that  entrance  examinations 


SECONDARY  SCHOOLS  AND  RICHER  EDUCATION.     329 

are  held.  From  this  point  of  view,  the  examinations 
become  merely  a  sieve  which  rapidly  and  confidently 
separates  the  body  of  applicants  into  two  general  classes : 
those  who  are  manifestly  well  prepared,  and  those  who 
probably  are  not  prepared.  But  no  reason  exists  why 
there  should  not  be  further  inquiry  and  careful  con- 
sideration regarding  any  person  who  has  failed  in  the 
formal  examination,  especially  one  who  has  passed  the 
usual  age  of  admission,  as  to  whether  he  may  not,  in 
spite  of  that,  be  fairly  qualified  to  begin  the  studies  of 
the  school  or  college.  Regarding  the  great  majority  of 
those  who  fail  at  formal  examinations  for  admission, 
there  is,  of  course,  little  to  be  said;  the  one  thing  they 
need  is  to  go  back  to  preparatory  schools  and  to  do  their 
work,  or  certain  portions  of  it,  over  again.  Among 
those  rejected  on  first  trial,  however,  often  are  found 
men  whose  partial  failure  is  due  to  causes  easily  ex- 
plained. Justice,  not  less  than  kindness,  requires  that 
such  persons  should  not  be  compelled  to  lose  a  year  of 
life,  perhaps  practically  be  debarred  from  a  further 
educational  career.  Certainly,  to  say  that  an  applicant 
who  has  been  admitted  has  a  right  to  object  to  the 
admission  of  others,  is  to  give  the  examinations  a  sig- 
nificance and  an  effect  which  are  unreasonable.  In 
the  school  with  which  I  am  connected,  I  think 
there  has  been  no  year  for  a  long  time  in  which 
the  faculty  have  not,  after  carefully  considering  the 
cases  of  rejected  men,  where  there  appeared  to  be 
reason  to  believe  that  the  examinations  had  not  proved 


380  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

a  fair  or  a  conclusive  test,  admitted  one  or  more  such 
persons.  They  have  never  felt  themselves  precluded 
from  dealing  with  any  case  upon  its  own  merits.  K  it 
were  found  that  an  applicant,  by  reason  of  tempera- 
ment, was  always  at  a  disadvantage  in  examinations; 
that  his  preparatory  school  record  showed  that  he  did 
better  in  current  daily  work  than  upon  review  or 
parade;  and  especially,  if  he  bore  a  character  for  fideKty, 
industry,  and  persistency,  he  might  be  admitted  in  the 
face  of  examination  marks  below  the  standard.  In 
other  words,  if  I  may  use  a  technical  expression,  we  have 
always  at  the  Institute  of  Technology  felt  entirely  at 
liberty,  so  far  as  examinations  are  concerned,  to  "  work 
over  the  tailings,"  and  to  extract  and  save  any  valuable 
metal  we  might  find  there. 


A  VALEDICTORY 


Addressed  to  the  Class  op  1887,  Massachusetts 
Institute  of  Tkchnolooy,  xtpon  their  Gbaduation, 
Mat  31, 1887. 


A  VALEDICTOKY. 

It  is  now  my  pleasant  duty,  on  behalf  of  the  Corpora- 
tion and  Faculty  of  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology, to  present  to  you  the  diplomas  of  your  honorable 
graduation,  and  to  greet  you  Bachelors  of  Science. 

What  we  have  said  in  these  testimonials  we  truly  and 
fully  mean.  All  that  is  here  written  is  to  be  taken  with- 
out discount,  qualification,  forced  construction,  or  aca- 
demic fiction.  These  diplomas  testify  to  four  years  of 
hard,  patient,  self-denying,  persistent  study  and  practice, 
week  by  week,  month  after  month,  in  science  and  in 
the  application  of  scientific  principles  to  the  arts  of  life. 
All  this  is  precisely  true  in  the  case  of  each  and  every 
one  of  you. 

And  on  behalf  of  your  teachers,  I  gladly  bear  witness 
to  the  cheerfulness,  courage,  and  zeal  with  which  you 
have  met  the  exacting  requirements  of  our  curriculum; 
the  fidelity  and  high  sense  of  honor  and  duty  with  which 
you  have  borne  yourselves  through  these  trying  years 
of  laborious  study.  Those  qualities  have  won  the  re- 
spect and  affection  of  your  instructors  here ;  they  cannot 
fail  to  secure  recognition  and  to  command  confidence  in 
the  new  lives  on  which  you  are  entering  to-day. 

Fortunate  are  they  who,  in  opening  a  new  chapter  of 
life,  are  not  required  to  do  what  is  implied  in  that  omi- 


834  COLLEGE  PROBLEMS. 

nous  phrase,  "  turning  over  a  new  leaf."  You  are  not 
now  called  upon  to  close  a  career  of  dissipation,  or  idle- 
ness, or  frivolity,  or  triviality,  with  good  resolutions  of 
amendment  and  reformation  for  the  future.  Your 
friends  and  teachers  are  not  counting  the  chances  that 
the  closer  contemplation  of  life's  responsibilities,  or  per- 
haps the  actual  pressure  of  its  burdens,  will  sober  your 
minds,  give  you  a  serious  sense  of  duty,  and  inspire  you 
for  the  first  time  with  a  strong  and  controlling  purpose. 
All  this  has  already  been  done  in  your  case:  else  you 
would  not  now  be  here. 

I  would  not  speak  to  you  as  if  your  characters  were 
altogether  formed,  your  education  completed,  or  the  last 
of  the  perils  that  beset  life  happily  passed.  Much,  very 
much,  remains;  but  it  is  not  by  turning  around  in  your 
course,  it  is  by  following  on  as  you  have  so  well  begun, 
that  you  are  to  pursue  your  voyage  and  reach  the  haven 
of  your  hopes  and  rightful  ambitions. 

It  is  always  a  long  and  weary  way  which  involves  th© 
retracing  of  steps  that  have  gone  in  the  wrong  direction, 
or  the  making  up  of  time  that  has  been  wasted;  and  I 
cannot  sufficiently  congratulate  you  that  you  have  taken 
the  morning  of  life,  while  the  heart  is  buoyant  within, 
the  limbs  stout  and  active,  while  the  air  around  is  fresh 
and  fragrant,  and  the  sun  is  yet  low  in  the  heavens,  to 
make  so  strong  and  stalwart  a  beginning  of  your  journey. 
I  cannot  believe  that,  as  you  pause  on  this  eminence, 
here  on  your  graduation  day,  and  look  back  and  down 
upon  the  camps  of  those  who  have  not  yet  girded  them- 


A    VALEDICTORY.  335 

selves  for  the  march,  but  are  still  resting  in  the  com- 
fortable belief  that  it  will  do  as  well  to  begin  life  in 
earnest  at  twenty-one  or  twenty-five,  you  are  at  all  dis- 
posed to  regret  your  own  early  start  and  the  manful 
exertions  to  which  you  have  given  the  dewy  hours  of 
morning. 

My  friends,  the  point  toward  which  all  your  studies 
and  exercises  have  been  directed  these  long  years  is  at 
length  reached;  the  hour  has  come  for  you  to  say  good- 
by  to  each  other  and  to  your  teachers,  and  with  brave 
and  hopeful  hearts  to  step  over  the  threshold  of  the 
school  out  into  the  wide  world  of  action. 


INDEX. 


Academy,  The,  reprint  from,  234 

Adams,  C.  K.,  quoted,  289 

Admission,  by  certificate,  327; 
to  colleges,  325;  to  schools  of 
technology,  13;  examinations, 
modifications  in,  87;  examina- 
tions, purpose  of,  328 

Agriculture  and  Mechanic  Arts. 
Colleges  of,  3;  congressional 
action  concerning,  90 

Algebra,  fallacies  regarding  its 
teaching,  132 

American  Institute  of  Instruc- 
tion, address  before,  196 

American  Social  Science  Associa- 
tion, address  before,  124 

American  Statistical  Association, 
301 

Amherst  College,  pioneer  in 
gymnastics,  271 

Apprentice-system,  158n 

Arithmetic,  Boston  School  Com- 
mittee's rules  regarding,  209, 
235;  confused  with  logic,  222, 
241,  248-254;  its  difficulty 
shown,  226;  home  lessons  in, 
236-240;  inadequacy  of  school 
training  in,  220,  246;  impor- 
tance of  simplifying,  209,  217, 
242;  occupies  too  much  time, 
137n,  215,  240;  opinions  of 
psychologists  regarding,  213. 
227;  related  to  algebra,  132; 
true  and  false,  compared,  210, 
220;  its  value  in  mental  cul- 
ture, 213,  244;  waste  of  time  in 
study  of,  223n,  239 

Art  and  athletics,  284 

Arts,  useful,  need  of  training  in, 
84 

Associated  Charities  of  Boston, 
address  before,  152,  154 

Athletics,  art  and,  284;  advan- 
tages and  disadvantages,  274- 
2^;  distinguished  from  gym- 


nastics, 273;  effect  upon  com- 
munity, 277;  organized  cheer- 
ing in,  280;  qualities  fostered 
by,  278;  recent  growth  of, 
271;  and  religion,  264;  spe- 
cialization in,  273;  stimulates 
patriotism,  279;  and  trans- 
cendentalism, 262;  at  West 
Point,  279;  at  Yale,  282 

Atlantic  Monthly,  reprint  from, 
38 

"  Atmosphere,"  in  colleges,  49; 
of  universities,  68 

Beecher,  H.  W., and  "Muscular 
Christianity,"  267 

Bigelow,  E.  B.,  45;  Jacob,  45 

Blake,  J.  G.,  quoted,  171n 

Boston  School  Committee,  ad- 
dress before,  208,  223n;  rules 
regarding  arithmetic,  209,  235 

Bowditch,  J.  I.,  45 

Brockway,  Supt.,  of  Elmira  Re- 
formatory, 267 

Brush,  G.  J.,  42 

Carpentry  and  wood-turning,  184 
Certificate,  admission  by,  327 
Chandler  Scientific  School,  126 
Charity  and  public-schools,  154 
Cheering,  in  athletics,  280 
Chemistry,  as  a  subject  for  ex- 
amination, 26;  in  colleges,  312; 
in  secondary  education,  101 
Chile,  the  affair  with,  270 
Christian  Register,  Tlie,  reprint 

from,  134 
City  boy,  disadvantages  of,  160, 

175-179 
Civil  War,  the, athleticism  before, 
260;  changes  due  to.  19,  31n, 
268-270;  its  effect  on  educa- 
tion, 88;  extraordinary  char- 
acter of,  270;  West  Point 
graduates  in,  30 


337 


338 


INDEX. 


Clark,  J.  E.,  quoted,  247 

Clarkson  Memorial  School  of 
Technology,  address  at,  81; 
how  established,  108 

Class  distinctions  and  industrial 
education,  129,  141 

Classical  colleges,  ' '  atmosphere  " 
in,  49;  danger  of  sophistry  in, 
23;  difficulties  of  smaller,  45; 
disciplinary  studies  in,  57; 
diminution  of  attendance  upon 
(1850),  81;  electives  in,  67; 
English  teaching  in.  111;  and 
English  high  schools,  324;  ex- 
aminations in,  24;  late  entrance 
into,  26;  modified  entrance 
requirements,  87;  relations  to 
community,  82;  and  technolog- 
ical colleges,  21-32, 33n,  93,  111 

Cobden,  R.,  his  power  in  speak- 
ing, 295 

College,  athletics  question  in, 259, 
276;  development  of  modern, 
91;  disciplinary  studies  in,  56; 
faculties  and  athletics,  281; 
graduates  in  schools  of  tech- 
nology, 8;  "  heroes,"  261;  his- 
tory and  economics  in,  289, 
310;  life,  its  charm,  74;  rela- 
tions to  professional  schools, 
62-66;  science-study  in,  312 

Colleges,  of  Agriculture  and 
Mechanic  Arts,  3,  90;  for  wo- 
men, 305 

Color-blindness,  198 

Columbia  University,  its  course 
in  statistics,  300;  its  law  school, 
67;  its  school  of  mines.  43, 126 

Columbian  Exposition,  6 

"Committee  of  Ten,"  its  pro- 
gramme, 326;  and  schools  of 
technology,  323 

Confederation  of  1781-87,  268 

Cooke,  J.  P.,  quoted,  25 

Cooking  in  public  schools,  163, 
169,  191 

Cornell  University.  43 

Country  life,  advantages  of,  158, 
175-179 

"  Cramming,"  24 

Crime  and  physical  condition,  267 

Cyclopedia  information,  189 

Dartmouth  College,  its  schools 
of  science,  126 


Deafness,  often  unsuspected,  201 
Dewey,  D.  R.,  301 
Dickinson,  J.  W.,  153,  163 
Discipline  in  college  studies,  56 
Disinterestedness  In   education, 

13,46 
"Dividend,  predetermined,"  its 

fallacy,  96 
Divinity  schools  and  universities, 

69 
Domestic   manufactures,    decay 

of,  177 
Drawing,  in  elementary  schools, 

139,    147;    discussed    by    Dr. 

Runkle,  lG2n,  185 
Drexel  Institute,  104 
Dwight,  President,   41;  Profes- 
sor, 67 

Ear.  its  education  neglected,  120 

Economic  studies  in  colleges, 
289,  310 

Education,  through  arithmetic, 
209-254;  "  atmosphere  "  in,  49, 
68;  disinterestedness  in,  13,  46; 
engineering,  9;  effect  of  Civil 
War  upon,  88;  iuEnglish,  111- 
122;  a  "freehand  "  in,  105- 
107;  importance  of.  to  New 
England,  167;  industrial,  125- 
131,  141.  153,  184;  the  kinder- 
garten principle  in,  161 ;  leisure  -J 
in,  55-58;  liberal,  55-77;  in  r 
morals,  134n;  public,  its  scope, 
154;  through  applied  science, 
101 

Educational  JReview,  The,  re- 
prints from,  54,  304 

Elective  system,  the,  56 

Emerson,  G.  B.,  45 

Engineer,  character  of  the,  59 

Engineering  education,  the  prob- 
lem of,  9 

English,  the  problem  of  teaching, 
111-122;  proficiency  in,  as  re- 
lated to  graduation,  122;  its 
study  in  elementary  schools, 
213;  suggestions  regarding 
students',  118-122 

English  high  school,  the,  its 
curriculum,  324 

Entrance,  by  certificate,  327;  to 
colleges,  325;  to  schools  of 
technology,  13,  330;  require- 
ments, modifications  in,  87 


INDEX. 


339 


Ethics,  the  teaching  of,  134n 
Examinations,  dangerous  tenden- 
cies of,  24;  in  English  univer- 
sities, 24;  real  scope  of  en- 
trance, 328 
Executive  faculty,  not  trained 
heretofore,  157 

Faculties,  college,  their  duty  in 
matter  of  English,  121;  their 
relation  to  athletics,  281 

Fairbairn,  Dr.,  quoted,  254 

Fallacies  and  statistics,  291 

Farm  and  village  life,  advan- 
tages of,  158,  175-179 

Flint.  C.  L.,  45 

Francis,  J.  B.,  45 

"Free  hand,"  a,  in  education, 
105-107 

Gazetteer  information,  useless- 
ness  of,  62,  137,  189 

Geography,  a  course  of  study 
quoted,  211;  its  elaboration  in 
modern  teaching,  211,  244;  ex- 
cess of,  in  elementary  schools, 
137n 

Geometry,  fallacies  regarding  its 
teaching,  132-135 

Germany,  debt  of  our  colleges  to, 
310 

Girls,  manual  training  for,  191 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  his  power  in 
speaking,  295 

Graduates,  college,  in  schools  of 
technology.  8;  proficiency  of, 
in  English,  122 

Grammar,  excess  in  schools,  137n 

Grammar  schools,  cooking  in, 
163,  169,  191;  manual  train- 
ing in,  139,  163;  metric  sys- 
tem in,  217;  overwork  in,  209; 
and  science-study,  102;  sewing 
in,  163,  169,  192 

Greece,  art  and  athletics  in.  284 

Gymnastic,  the  true,  of  teaching, 
222,  250 

Gymnastics,  distinguished  from 
athletics.  273;  desirability  of, 
271,  274:  and  relieious  be- 
liefs, 264;  stimulated  by  ath- 
letics, 278 

Hall,  G.  S.,  opinions  on  arith- 
metic, 227-229 


Hamilton.  Sir  W.,  on  mathemat- 
ics, 213;  Lady,  anecdote  of, 
182 

Harvard  Graduates'  Magazine, 
reprint  from,  258 

Harvard  University,  7;  course 
in  statistics,  300;  its  medical 
school,  70;  modified  entrance 
requirements  in,  87;  relations  to 
Lawrence  Scientific  School,  40 

Hawaii,  affair  in,  270 

Hemenway,  Mrs.,  and  cooking 
schools,  193 

High  schools,  and  colleges,  323; 
English,  324;  liberal  studies 
in,  61;  military  drill  in,  272n; 
modified  by  new  conditions, 
99;  proficiency  of  graduates 
from,  56,  188;  should  give 
ampler  development,  187; 
science-study  in,  101 

Hill,  F.  A.,  153n 

Historical  studies,  development 
of,  289,  309 

Home  lessons,  their  disadvan- 
tages, 236-240 

Howison,  G.  H. ,  opinions  on 
arithmethic,  227,  229 

Huling,  R.  G.,  323-327 

Industrial  development,  and  ap- 
prentice-system, 158n;  and 
schools  of  technology,  19,  88 

Industrial  education,  defined, 
125;  advantages  of,  to  youth, 
142;  and  class  distinctions,  129, 
141;  develops  slow  pupils,  145; 
and  labor,  144,  166;  in  public 
schools,  153;  time  to  be  given 
to,  185;  a  scheme  of,  131,  184n 

International  Congress  of  Educa- 
tion, address  at,  3 

James,  Wm.,  opinions  on  arith- 
metic, 227 

Johnston,  J.  F.  W.,  Notes  on 
North  America,  81 

Journal  of  Social  Science,  reprint 
from,  124 

Kindergarten,  the,  161,  162n 

Labor  and  Capital,  Senate  Com- 
mittee on,  testimony  before, 
137,  180 


940 


INDEX. 


Labor,  respect  for,  fostered  by 
industrial  education,  144, 166 

Language-power,  of  students, 
compared,  112;  should  be 
given  in  schools,  114 

Law  schools  and  universities,  67, 
70 

Lawrence,  Abbott,  gifts  to  Har- 
vard, 7,  73 

Lawrence  Scientific  School,  39, 
73,  88;  college  graduates  in,  8, 
73 

Leisure  in  education,  55-58 

Liberal  education,  alleged  three 
stages  in,  55 

Liberal    studies,  pursuit  of,  55, 
60;  in  secondary  schools,  61  ;• 
in  technical  schools,  12,  33, 48, 
65,  75-77,  92 

Literary  societies,  their  decay, 
271 

Literature  and  science  com- 
pared, 135 

Logic  and  arithmetic  confused, 
222.  241,  248-254 

Lounsbury,  T.  R.,  49 

Low,  Seth,  67 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  quoted,  15 

McGill  University,  remarks  at, 
46n 

Manhood  cannot  be  made  by  col- 
leges, 76n 

Mann,  Horace,  quoted,  169 

Manual  training,  cost  in  city  and 
country  compared,  179-182; 
development  of,  182;  in  ele- 
mentary schools,  139,  163;  for 
girls,  191;  relation  to  mental 
growth,  197-206;  and  science- 
study,  164;  a  test  for  defects, 
208 

Mass.  Institute  of  Technology, 
42,  126;  college  graduates  in, 
8,  74;  course  in  statistics,  300; 
development  of.  90;  entrance 
examinations  at,  330;  estab- 
lishes a  mechanic  arts  course, 
141;  founded  by  W.  B.  Rogers, 
89;  its  graduates,  76n;  liberal 
studies  in,  49,  78;  trustees  of, 
45;  a  valedictory  to  its  class  of 
1887.  331 

Mass.  Teachers'  Association,  ad- 
dress before,  234 


Mathematics,  Hamilton  on,  213; 

mental  culture  and,  213,  244; 

teaching  of,  132-135,  209-224 
Mechanic  arts,  colleges  of,  8,  90; 

high  schools,  99 
Mechanics,  principles  of,  should 

be  taught  early,  130, 136 
Medical  schools  and  universities, 

69 
Mental  culture  and  mathematics, 

213,  244 
Metric  system  as  a  school  study, 

217 
Michigan,  University  of,  88 
Military  drill,  272n 
Morality,  the  teaching  of,  134n 
Morrill,  Senator,  90 
National    Educational    Associa- 
tion, addresses  before,  3,  174; 

its  "Committee  of  Ten,"  323- 

326 
New  England,  changes  in  village 

life  in,  160,  168;  and  education, 

167;  values  in  early,  292 
New    England    Association    of 

Colleges       and      Preparatory 

Schools,  address  before,  322 
New  England  colleges,  associated 

action  regarding  entrance,  13; 

loss  in  numbers  about   1850, 

81 
Normal  schools,  inadequacy  of, 

107,  316;  manual  training  in, 

140 

Oratory,  high  repute  of,  31n,  261; 
its  decay,' 271 

Orthopedic  surgery  and  lan- 
guage teaching  compared, 
115,  122 

Overwork  in  schools,  209 

Page,  J.  A.,  quoted,  171n 

Patriotism  and  athletics,  279 

Peun.  State  College,  address  at, 
31n 

Phi  Beta  Kappa  oration,  258 

Philbrick,  J.  D..  45 

Physical  culture,  desirability  of, 
271,  274;  effect  upon  crimi- 
nals, 267;  and  religious  beliefs, 
264;  and  transcendentalism, 
262;  stimulated  by  athletics, 
278 

Physics,   in    colleges,   312;    ele- 


INDEX. 


341 


ments  should  be  taught  early, 
130,  135;  in  secondary  schools, 
101 ;  as  a  subject  for  examina- 
tion, 26 

Political  ideas,  affected  by  tran- 
scendentalism, 263;  modern, 
268 

Political  mechanism,  value  of, 
269 

Population  of  New  England,  its 
transformation,  180,  168 

Porter,  Noah,  opinions  on  arith- 
metic, 227,  231 

Pratt  Institute,  104 

Professional  men  and  technical 
schools,  8 

Professional  schools,  athletics  in, 
283;  relations  to  colleges,  62. 
66 

Professional  success,  kind  to  be 
striven  for,  11,  75 

Public  schools,  cooking  in,  163, 
169,  191;  drawing  in,  139, 
147;  English  in,  213;  hostility 
toward,  171;  industrial  educa- 
tion in,  131,  153,  184n 

Pupils,  relation  of  teachers  to, 
27 

Religious  beliefs,  and  physical 
culture,  264;  in  schools,  134n 

Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute, 
43,  87,  126 

Requirements  for  admission,  13, 
87,  325-328 

Rogers,  W.  B.,  founds  Mass. 
Institute  of  Technology,  89; 
Life  and  Letters  of,  90 

Rose  Polytechnic  Institute,  43 

Runkle,  J.  D.,  Industrial  Educa- 
tion, 141;  quoted,  158n,  162n, 
185 

Safford,  Professor,  quoted,  247 
St.      Louis     Manual      Training 

School,  141 
School  Beview,  reprint  from,  322 
Science,  reprint  from,  184 
Science-schools  compared,  4 
Science-teaching,  course  of  study 
in,  212;    in  grammar  schools, 
102;     growth    of,  in    modern 
schools,   212;    compared  with 
manual  training,  164 
Scientific  men,  high  aims  of,  47 


Seaver,  E.  P.,  quoted,  156n,  162n 
Secondary  education,  as  affected 

by  modern  life,  99;  defective 

teaching   of  English  in,  113; 

and    liigher    education,    323; 

liberal  studies  in,  61;  military 

drill    in,    272;   small    number 

pursuing,  100 
Sectarianism,  134n 
Self-made  men,  weakness  of.  66 
Sense  training,  neglect  of,  155 
Sewing  in  schools.  163,  169,  192 
Shaler,  N.  S.,  39,  72 
Sheffield,  J.  E.,  90 
Sheffield  Scientific  School,  41,88, 

126;   athletics  in,  282;  -college 

graduates    in,   8,    73;    liberal 

studies     in,      49;      President 

Walker     professor     in,    41n; 

relations  of,  to  Yale,  41 
Sibley  College,  43 
Snobbishness,  11,  50,  72,  165 
Sophistry,  danger  of,  in  colleges, 

23 
Specialization  in  manufactures, 

160,  177 
Spelling,  undue  stress  upon,  116 
Statistics,  congressmen  and,  297; 

courses    of,   in  colleges,   300; 

difficulties  of,  296;    examples 

of  errors  in,  292.  297;   public 

liking  for,  294;  uses  of,  291 
Stearns,  President,  272 
Stevens  Institute  of  Technology, 

43,  126 
Students,  relations  of,  10,  45,  72, 

165 
Supply  and  demand,  in  relation 

to  schools  of  technology,  20, 

95-98 
Swan.  Robert,  170 
Systematic  training,  advantages 

of,  175 

Teachers,  demand  for,  315 ;  and 
pupils,  27;  training  of,  107, 
315-319 

Tech,  The,  reprint  from,  33n 

Technological  education,  charac 
ter  of,  23;  disinterestedness 
in,  14,  46;  nature  of,  5-;-21; 
need  of  conference  regarding, 
4 

Technology,  schools  of,  admis- 
sion to,  13,  330;  college  gradu- 


342 


INDEX. 


ates  in,  8;  and  "Committee 
of  Ten,"  323;  character  of 
studies  in,  11,  28,  92;  compared 
witli  classical  colleges,  21-32, 
33n,  93,  111:  defined,  125; 
development  of,  4, 19,  91;  differ 
from  original  plans,  7;  effect 
upon  community,  98;  English 
teaching  in.  111;  expediency 
of  establishing,  126;  and 
industrial  growth,  19,  88; 
liberal  studies  in,  12,  33,  48, 
65,  75-77,  92;  nature  of,  7-21; 
relation  of  professional  men  to, 
8;  supply  and  demand  in  rela- 
tion to,  20,  95;  and  trade 
schools,  128;  and  universities, 
9-39,  43,  68,  71 

Technology  Quarterly,  The, 
reprints  from,  18,  258,  288 

Thayer  School  of  Engineering, 
126 

Trade  schools,  advantages  of, 
129;  contrasted  with  schools 
of  technology.  128;  defined,  127 

Transcendentalism  as  affecting 
standards  of  life,  262,  271;  and 
athletics,  262 ;  and  political 
ideas,  263 

Union  College,    Pres.   Wayland 

at,  86 
United   States,  the,  their  better 

international      attitude,     269; 

unique  conditions  in,  83 


Universities,  "atmosphere"  of, 
68;  divinity  schools  and,  69; 
duty  to  make  scholars,  68; 
governing  boards  in,  10. 43,  72: 
and  law  schools,  67,  78 ;  and 
schools  of  technology,  9-39, 
43,  68,  71;  snobbishness  in, 
11,  50,  72 

University  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  address  to,  19 

Vassar  College,  305 

Wayland,  President,  quoted, 
81-84;  opinions  discussed,  87, 
94 

Webster,  Daniel,  quoted,  262 

Wells,  D.  A. ,  his  power  in  speak- 
ing, 295 

West  Point,  football  at,  279;  its 
graduates  in  Civil  War,  30 

Whitney,  W.  D.,  49 

Women,  colleges  for,  305;  and 
marriage,  308,  311,  319;  and 
normal  training,  315-319;  in 
public  affairs,  308 

Woodward,  C.  M.,  141;  quoted, 
166n 

Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute, 
126 

Yale  University,  74;  relations  of 
scientific  school  to,  90;  suc- 
cess of,  with  athletics,  282 


THE   END. 


y 


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